Monday, August 31, 2009

Foust Building (the Building That Stood Out)

Well, it was the first day of the HSS 105 class. I didn't know what to expect so you always anticipate what will happen. Well, here goes!! The Foust Building is the only original building left on UNCG's campus. Back in the older days, it was the Administration Building. So, this building has a reputation that precedes itself. After looking around the building, you can already see that the Foust building is different from the other buildings. The building has a rough structure compared to the smooth structure of the EUC or the Alumni Building. The color structure is different because the Foust building is brick colored with a green roof. Now, I would wonder why this building is different from the gray buildings around it. Then, I saw a picture of the other buildings at the time of the early 1900s. This building was the same as the others around it! The styles switched later in the years for some reason. Maybe it looked more professional or business-like. Also, you can see a bunch of the history of Foust Building through the materials left behind on the building like old electrical pipes and the air vents used before air conditioning. Still, one of the items that really got me was a star-shape placed in a circle. There were five in a column posted on one or two walls. It turns out that the building had these on the wall for structure and "earthquake" protection. As it seems, the people who constructed the building saw that there was a possibility that the building would bulge out, causing structual damage. I mean, that's some very good thinking!! Who would think that far? Well, there's one more thing that really stuck out to me. It was the fact that the windows on the building were not consistent. The top floor's windows were rectangular with a round top, but the other floors had windows that were just rectangular. Doesn't make sense to me, but maybe it was a puzzle. It could have been where we put the windows together to form a bigger rectangle. Sadly, this can not be explained because there's no exact way to prove my theories. Only time will tell. Still, through all this, we can see that the Foust building is a building that stands out above the rest in all categories. It is a monument of UNCg and will, hopefully, stand forever for the history it resembles.

1 comment:

  1. taylor...good observations....and i get some sense of what you're THINKING about what we saw. if i could level a criticism here it would be that your readers are going to be far more interested in your ASSESSMENT of the built environment rather than a simple description of all we saw. i'm glad you had a camera in class today, as your blog could use some visual delights.

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