Like nearly all large gifts bestowed by filthy-rich philanthropists, Charlie Munger’s presents to universities come with strings attached.
Munger (bio here), Warren Buffett’s buddy, gives money to campuses for student housing but insists on designing the buildings himself. Slavishly follow his blueprints, or no money.
Munger isn’t a trained architect and it shows. Critics call his dormitories “cellblocks.” (See article here.) He’s offered the University of California – Santa Barbara (UCSB) $200 billion to build a huge cellblock. The university’s design review board’s architect is so disgusted with the plans he quit.
On a campus “located on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean,” CNN says (story here), students would be stuffed into tiny, windowless, sleeping cubicles in claustrophobic modules, each with a small communal kitchen (there is no cafeteria), within a huge rectangular box of a building that sooner or later will be dubbed “the Lubyanka” (if you don’t know what they is, go here).
The only similar residential building I know of off the top of my head is ADX Florence. (If you don’t know what that is, go here.)
The architect who quit called it “a social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates.” Munger says, “”Architecture is a field where tastes vary.”
That’s why it’s better to pay for facilities we all use from a pot of public money we all pay into, instead of enslaving ourselves to the whims of big donors (or a big donor). When it’s Charlie Munger’s money, only his tastes matter. And you’ve just seen what those are.
But money talks louder than brains; UCSB is going to take his money, on his terms and conditions.
If you extrapolate this approach to larger things than dormitories, say, private charity instead of government entitlements (the system favored by conservatives), you’ll get a system in which a handful of people (or one person) have all the say and make all the decisions, and the other 330 million of us are merely guinea pigs for their social experiments.
Imagine, for example, if the development and distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine depended entirely on the generosity of a Sackler (if you don’t know who they are, go here), and came with strings attached which they dictated.
The obverse of the charity approach is that we all kick in for the common good, and through representatives we choose, we all have some say about what comes out of the sausage-maker. It might not please everyone, but at least it’s the product of a deliberative thought process, and empirical experience suggests it’s less likely to be a monstrosity.
What rankles most about this is that Munger wants these students to live in quarters he wouldn’t live in himself. His Santa Barbara house (he has others) is shown at upper left. It’s not a very good picture, but you can’t get closer because of the security. Artist’s rendering of his dormitory design are at upper right and lower left; the floor plan (note, there are several of these floors stacked atop of each other) is below.
It’s a building worthy of a Stalinist collective or modern-day North Korea. In fact, the architecture is unmistakably Stalinist. Which makes you wonder whether Charlie Munger, one of America’s pre-eminent capitalists, is really a socialist-realist (explanation here) at heart.
I think the rooms resemble monks cells, so austere, but certainty not a prison. No bars and no gates. The university likely has a cafeteria for students. Most college dorms do not have cafeterias.
When a donor gives serious money it can come with strings. The university is free to use that amazing word: “No.” I suppose that would end the donation. I don’t sympathize with the boards architect as he can devote himself to other projects.
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Certainly Eastern Washington University owes it existence to being in the middle of no where. It was intentional and no doubt there was hope this would encourage study, perhaps this explains why some people picked up a propensity for licking toads.
You can feed ’em MREs, too. Or have a hunting-and-gathering student body. The modules have kitchenettes, but the story doesn’t say whether UCSB Housing provides food as part of the residence hall fees, or the inmates have to purchase it.
The building also has only two doors; wouldn’t that make it a death trap in a fire? I’m surprised building codes would even allow that.
The university could’ve said “no,” but didn’t. The architect did choose to devote himself to other projects, as he doesn’t believe students should be treated this way.
EWU owes its existence to the state’s need for teachers. It originated as a private academy in a railroad town. In the 1880s, western railroad towns were “somewhere” in the “middle of nowhere,” i.e. population and commercial centers. After statehood, the academy was taken over by the state and integrated into a system of teacher training schools (called “normal schools”) established in the 1890s. This being a time when transportation was by railroad, wagon, or horseback, and travel was fairly difficult, this system was decentralized and organized on a regional basis. Like the other normal schools, EWU eventually evolved into a university with a general curriculum, but like the other former normal schools, it retains as a core mission training the state’s public school teachers.