The Complacency of Beauty

Claire Huxley

Love it or loathe it, Cambridge is pretty. There are undoubtedly far uglier places to spend your formative years. For all Cambridge lacks in nightlife, well-lit pathways or reasonably-priced breakfasts, it more than makes up for in winding cobbled streets and oak panelled walls. Let Oxford keep its dreaming spires; we’re overflowing with our own. But with such beautiful buildings at every turn, is it possible that we have become complacent? Does impressive architecture bestow a prestige that allows us to rest on our laurels? The university must think so, for what else could explain monstrosities like the UL or Sidgwick site’s much maligned Raised Faculty Building? Perhaps the powers that be are worried that too many arches and vaulted ceilings will cause a severe case of smugness. The only cure: a heavy dose of concrete breeze blocks.

However if the university is afraid of the power of beautiful architecture’s to rot our minds, they needn’t worry. If anything, arched doorways and sun-dappled cloisters seem to have quite the opposite effect; could there be more than academics behind Trinity’s five year domination of the Tompkins Table and unmatched number of Nobel Laureates? It’s a tempting conclusion, but one which falls apart on scrutiny – Churchill ranks as the sixth best college academically, while St John’s languishes seventeenth.

Yet, regardless of whether architecture specifically influences academics, it certainly plays a large role in what makes our experience here so special. Any jaded third-year who forgets the magic of a candle-lit hall need only take a glance at the awed faces of their college children to be reminded of how it felt to go to formal for the first time. Even at our most stressed, frustrated or cynical, the utter beauty of Cambridge has a habit of sneaking up on us; be it sunlight glittering on the river, or the trees on the Backs turning from emerald to gold, there’s always a new sight to take refuge in. There’s a reason why our Instagram feeds swell up in exam term. In the midst of a week five meltdown, breath-taking views feel like our university’s last saving grace, the unshakeable element that makes the whole thing worth the struggle.

For many of us, Cambridge’s beauty is inspiring, a constant reminder of what makes it unique, and of the hard work that it takes to achieve (and keep) a place here. Rest on our laurels? You’re far more likely to find us resting on a window seat in the library.

Architecture and Access

Christina Farley

My school was made of asbestos. Its most interesting feature was the relative ease with which you could stick a foot through an outside wall, resulting in immediate evacuation and no lessons in that classroom for several days. Also notable were the orange stalactites blooming on the ceiling of the science block.

All this was a far cry from the strange, ageless beauty of Cambridge architecture, the first thing that hooked me in and in many ways a key reason I applied. There are various moments that stand out: A punting tour just after GCSEs, when the astonishing virginia-creeper-covered back of New Court convinced me that I liked St John’s best. A corner of what I now know to be the Old Music Room, the red curtain, panelled ceiling, heraldic carvings, glimpsed through a Tudor window from the street, when I desperately wanted to be inside. I could think of nothing better than to study the History of Art and Architecture while surrounded by the buildings that appeared in my books.

We often hear in the media about the lawns of Cambridge and Oxford, condemned with that hackneyed adjective, ‘manicured’. According to these writers, our buildings ooze stuffiness, fossilised in architectural splendour: colleges where only the rich and privileged could possibly feel at home. Their similarity with England’s best public schools no doubt lends weight to this misconception. Poor state-school students must feel hopelessly out of place in these surroundings, we are repeatedly told: how could they feel otherwise, coming from an environment so far removed from it?

We should be wary of this attitude, which confuses attractive buildings with barriers to social mobility. The implication is that state-school students, not surrounded by beauty from birth, must be intimidated by it. But why shouldn’t students who are not from these (minority) backgrounds love it too? To focus on the buildings is to ignore the bigger issue: a private education is often (but not always) quite simply better than a state one, and can provide the resources that give its recipients the confidence to succeed whatever environment they find themselves in. Of course, the same goes for family background: parents who take an interest in their child’s education make it easier for them to succeed as adults. These are the real reasons for inequality in career destinations and university admissions, not the buildings. There is also media hyperbole to contend with. Psychologically, the effect of the architecture surely pales in comparison to the effect of the many hysterical articles about ‘toffs’, channelled comfortably from cloistered schools through the dreaming spires of Oxbridge and into the halls of Westminster, or other stereotypical career destinations. If state-school students do feel uncomfortable looking up at King’s College Chapel, or peering through the gates of Sidney Sussex, or seeing St John’s Chapel Tower looming on the horizon, is it because of the architecture? Or is it because that’s what they are told they should feel?

The idea that great architecture must frighten those who aren’t lucky enough to be acclimatised to it before they arrive is patronising and problematic. I did not like the fact that my school was made of asbestos. I did not like the ugliness of the white and blue metal. The fact that it was freezing in winter was not compensated for by gorgeous, if ill-fitting, Gothic windows. I wanted to escape. It was Cambridge’s stunning surroundings – coupled in my mind with the excellence of the education and the promise of friends on my wavelength – that made me want to come here. The buildings of my school did shape me, but they taught me to long for something lovelier. The beauty of Cambridge drew me here. It is not the preserve of the rich.