Editorial | A landmark on 33rd St.

As students returned to campus this fall, many got their first glance inside Skirkanich Hall - and just about everyone was impressed.

The structure, which towers above the low-slung Moore and Towne buildings on either side, shows off its strong presence with its shingled glass facade. The building serves as a grand new entrance to the School of Engineering and Applied Science for the outside world - much as the entrance to Levine Hall serves as the School's campus entrance.

Skirkanich adds much-needed personality to an area of campus dominated by ugly, inward-looking buildings - like DRL - that add little to the neighborhood.

And it's not just Penn students who are impressed.

Ingra Saffron, The Philadelphia Inquirer's highly respected architecture critic, wrote that Skirkanich "breaks the rules [of local architecture] with such breathtaking skill and winning panache that you're happy to forget there ever were rules."

Yet, while the Engineering School - which commissioned the project - hit a home run with Skirkanich Hall, the University's record of late isn't nearly so positive. The McNeil Center for Early American Studies at 34th and Walnut streets looks more like a drab pile of bricks than a building with daring or style.

That's what worries us.

Buildings that challenge architectural norms and attempt to inspire imagination won't often be loved, but few would argue they dislike McNeil because of its daring architecture.

Truly daring buildings are ones that inspire for decades, not years, after their initial completion. Van Pelt Library, cited by many as lesson No. 1 in bad urban design, was described by this publication in 1962 as "the most aesthetically pleasing building in the University area."

Penn gambled with Skirkanich, and we hope that same willingness to experiment finds its way onto the postal lands. Whether or not the Class of 2050 hates the building, at least Penn took a risk.

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