By ELLA DIERS
A remaining symbol of Scott Bierman’s reign, towering over us every second: the Powerhouse. This former power plant, completed in 2021, cost $48.5 million, according to an article by Architectural Record. Beloit College has been forcing this building down our silly little undergrad gullets at every turn, and I don’t care for it.
My first experiences with the Powerhouse weren’t bad, actually. I came to Beloit in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. The Weissberg Auditorium made it available for me to have in-person classes at a time when most college students were attending Zoom University. The field house was also a great resource. During orientation week, we had socially-distanced movie nights on the turf. It let me play softball, a sport I was part of during my first two years at Beloit. In being here though, I have grown to resent this space that once seemed so promising. That Architectural Record article quotes Beloit project manager, Dan Schooff, who says the Powerhouse is “an ideal building for social distancing.” Schoof is right. The Powerhouse was built for a pandemic and still carries the air of a lonely reality that society has since left behind. The Powerhouse was built with isolation in mind, and you can tell.
For a college that prides itself on small class sizes and discussion-based classes, a massive amphitheater is an odd choice for a classroom when we aren’t forced to be three rows apart. Last semester, I had a class in Weissburg, and it was awful. Many classes at Beloit are discussion-based, but it’s nearly impossible to talk to people when we are in stadium seating.
Our solution was to have small group discussions in different places around the Powerhouse; the library, a conference room, the gray couches… Yet, this solution was also problematic. The sounds of Hamilton’s, weights being dropped from two floors above, piano notes haltingly echoing loudly off the high ceiling: these noises are not conducive to a learning environment. This also means that an entire class, instead of taking up one classroom, is now taking up four separate areas in a place that already has limited space for studying. This is especially trying when the library is out of commission.
We currently don’t have a library space, and the Powerhouse library is simply not up to the task. It’s loud, you can’t study there with your friends, and it closes at 10 p.m. on Sunday nights (typically cram time for students prone to procrastination, i.e. most college students). The seating in the library faces the pool, and I am not ready to face the awkwardness of studying while staring down the swim team’s speedos.
The Powerhouse also feels bad. It manages to feel sterile and dirty at the same time, which makes sense when you think about its origins. The earliest parts of the building were constructed in 1908 and were added upon through the 1940s. It was a power plant, used for a hydroelectric dam. Its million-dollar makeover didn’t result in a Disney Princess glow-up. I don’t feel welcome in the conference room, I feel like I’m being stared at when I sit on the couches in the middle of the floor, and I never feel like I can use the rooms near the welcome desk. It feels like an administrative building–because it is. Those spaces don’t feel like they belong to students to hang out in—they are places for serious meetings, to talk about budgets or event planning.
In the past year, there have been a few events held at the Powerhouse. The Powerhouse Takeover during the first-year orientation week, a party for parents and alumni during Beloiter Days, and the President’s Inaugural Bash are some celebrations in recent memory. There is always food, music, dancing, games, and free t-shirts, but there’s no life.
The fluorescent lights make it awkward to dance in front of everyone, the acoustics make the music blaring from the speakers seem like it’s cornering you from every direction. During the Powerhouse Takeover, I could hear the music up on the fourth floor, in the Stack. There is no good space to go off and gab with a small group of friends. This isn’t just my interpretation. My mom and uncle, both alumni, left the Beloiter Days event early for these same reasons. I saw students leaving the Inaugural Bash at 7:30 p.m. with the free t-shirts they came for. I’ve spoken to first-years who would have rather made new friends and had actual conversations with them than a fleeting moment of free cotton candy or popcorn.
“Bierman’s epiphany,” that article called it. It simply can not be a gym, a track, a field house, a student center, a restaurant, a study space, a meeting space, and a community all at the same time. Because the Powerhouse tries to be everything at once, it fails at all of it. Bierman left behind a symbol of his power. He showed everyone he could finally complete something and showed everyone how big it could be. Look at the Stack, standing erect in the wind. Bierman’s million-dollar phallus has trapped us in its shadow.
Leave a Reply