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Feb. 6, 2013
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, ROOM 301
Attendees
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees: Edgar D. Jannotta
- Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees: James S. Crown
- Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees: Paula Wolff
- Joseph Neubauer, Trustee
- Thomas J. Pritzker, Trustee
- Valerie B. Jarrett, Trustee
- Don Michael Randel, President of the University
- John W. Boyer, Dean of the College
- Robert J. Zimmer, Vice President for Research
- Cesar Pelli, Lead Architect
Standing Subcommittees
- Subcommittee for Coffee and Donut Acquisition: Subcommittee Chairman Zimmer announced that the donuts this week came from the Dunkin’ Donuts store on 63rd Street because the 53rd Street location is undergoing renovations.
- Subcommittee for the Life of the Mind: Subcommittee Chairman Boyer told a humorous anecdote about the history of the University and managed to tie in several references to the Hapsburg Empire.
- Subcommittee for Dining Activities: Chairman Neubauer suggested that the Ratner Athletic Center contain an Aramark-staffed dining hall.
- Subcommittee for Hyper-Wealthy Trustees: Co-Chairmen Crown and Pritzker compared the net worths of their family trees.
Design Discussion
- Cesar Pelli opened the discussion with a brief introduction working blueprints for the Ratner Athletic Center. The current design is an elegant cube-shaped building made entirely of stainless steel.
- The Chairman then opened the floor to discussion of the working design.
- Vice President Zimmer asked whether it wouldn’t be way cooler if the building was shaped like a giant ship.
- Trustee Jarrett asked “what the hell are you talking about Robert?”
- Vice President Zimmer requested that the committee “hear him out” and insisted that glass cubes were “for pussies” and if the committee wanted to athletic center to promote the “glory of manly sports” it would be “way fucking cooler if it were shaped like a giant ship.”
- The Chairman asked Mr. Pelli what his architectural opinion of the idea was.
- Mr. Pelli said that the design changes, only a few weeks before groundbreaking, might be prohibitively complicated.
- Dean Boyer gave an impassioned speech about the Life of the Mind and resorted to a humorous anecdote about the University’s history to illustrate the necessity for the new athletic center to be ship-shaped.
- Vice President Zimmer noted that “ship-shaped” sounds a lot like “ship-shape” meaning “in good order.
- The Chairman instructed Mr. Pelli to come up with a new set of blueprints which included a “significant portion of the athletic center resembling a large pirate ship.”
- Mr. Pelli sighed deeply.
