Retrospect: the C building

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor mentions the C building.

Back in the 90s when I started at university, it took a while to get used to the campus. It was laid out around a broad walkway, half of which was paved while the other half was a field crossed by well-worn paths. Even though I had classes in buildings on all four sides, it took me a few weeks to learn truly how far one end of the campus was from the other.

One mysterious place was the C building. It was at the less-traveled end of the campus. Moreover, paths led there more easily from its far neighbours than from buildings at the more active end.

Like some other campus buildings, the C building had a courtyard. The difference was that its was accessible from outside on two sides through breaches in the first floor. This meant that, to get from point A to point B on the first floor, it was often fastest to walk outside then re-enter through a facing door. The courtyard was paved with large blocks and had trees and garden features.

Inside, the C building kept you guessing. Its halls seemed to turn corners often, leading to study areas you couldn’t see until you arrived there. There were main staircases, but also less obvious ones. I think the building had four floors, one of which was a basement.

The C building was used for many first-year courses, both arts and sciences. It could be a challenging building to find a room in – I recall having to ask more than once. However, the rooms were often quite different from each other, so once you knew yours, there was no mistaking.

One reason the C building was unique was its age: the newer buildings didn’t have the spontaneity or fancy of the C building’s architecture.

I returned to the campus twenty years later because my son, in middle school then, had a performance there. I showed him around, including the C building, which hadn’t changed. He didn’t seem as intrigued by it as I was.

The C building, for me, embodies the idea that some things become familiar, yet one doesn’t “get used to” them. Each time I entered the C building, I felt like an explorer, even when I knew where I was going.

Only one other person I talked to shared my perception of the C building: it was N (see here). We discussed its wandering hallways, hidden lounges, and speculated how many places it contained that we would never know. However, we never walked through it together; we went there for separate classes at separate times.