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Like Hajjar, Hallock designed his own home and many others in State College, including the residences of former University president Eric Walker and Marlin “Mattie” Mateer, first owner of the Corner Room. Hallock spent more than 30 years on the faculty (1947-79), including a stint as department head following Osborne’s retirement. During his long tenure, he was also active in the community, serving on the State College Borough Council and the architectural appeals board, among other organizations. He was chair of the local hospital board when it decided to build the current facility, located on Park Avenue.
Immersion in Virtual Reality
Since opening in the spring of 2002, the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture’s Immersive Environments Lab (IEL), a joint venture with Penn State’s Information Technology Services (ITS) Visualization Group, has become an integral part of the architecture curriculum, helping students to visualize their designs using virtual reality (VR) technology. Now equipped with a three-screen immersive environment (three 6 ft. x 8 ft. screens in a panoramic layout) and a SMARTech board, which allows users to control their presentations by simply touching the screen, the IEL continues to develop cost-effective, easy-to-use virtual reality techniques and processes for architecture, the design arts and other disciplines.
Loukas Kalisperis, professor of architecture, and George Otto, manager of the ITS Visualization Group, created the Immersive Environments Lab. Kalisperis’ second-year students recently presented their final projects via the lab’s immersive and collaborative software (developed at Penn State) to architects at NBBJ in Columbus, Ohio. The collaborative software, combined with standard audio and video conferencing, allowed the NBBJ architects to essentially follow the students’ “tours” through their proposed designs, via the Internet. This was the first time a second-year studio presented design proposals using a long-distance collaborative environment in stereo. Corrie Messinger, a former student in the Department of Architecture and an employee at NBBJ, has facilitated the ongoing effort between NBBJ and the IEL to introduce simultaneous immersive and stereo presentation environments.
While video conference participation during architecture student presentations is not unheard of, Kalisperis says what happened in the IEL was groundbreaking. “The IEL is a great example of the confluence of knowledge and how, in academia, diverse experts can work together to produce experiences truly beneficial for our students.”
Since the beginning, students have played an essential role in developing the IEL, designing and building display structures, projection pedestals, signage and other items. Most recently, Jamie Heilman, a former architecture student currently in the Department of Integrative Arts, built the necessary screen and projection infrastructure to facilitate the stereo collaborative environment. Currently he is working on the “Suitcase IEL,” a portable passive stereo screen and projection setup that will be driven by a portable computer.
For more information on the IEL, visit gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/facilities/iel.
“I stayed on the Penn State faculty because I really enjoyed the students,” explains Hallock, who still lives in the home he designed and partially built, located at the corner of Prospect Avenue and Fraser Street. He taught design studio and an office practice course, which allowed him to share the professional experience he gained working for a Chicago firm and in his own local practice.
According to Anderson, Hallock’s professional background made him a valuable mentor. “I’ve always felt you have to practice what you teach, so in that regard Phil Hallock was my mentor, because he designed so many houses in this community,” he explains. “He was a significant contributor to the architectural quality of State College.”
Renowned California architect Gregory Ain succeeded Hallock as department head in 1963, after the Department of Architecture was moved to the newly formed College of Arts and Architecture. Known for his design of low-cost housing, Ain’s work has been featured in virtually all American architectural periodicals and a number of books. Although he was at Penn State for just four years, his national reputation helped draw attention to the University’s architecture department.
Student Life: All Work, a Little Play
In the 1950s and 1960s, universities were still considered to be acting “in locos parentis,” which meant curfews and other regulations to ensure students—especially women students—were safe at home “after hours.” At Penn State in the 1950s, most buildings were closed at midnight and reopened at 6 a.m. These restrictions posed a significant challenge for architecture students, who needed to work in studio.
“Students would always try to get back into [Main Engineering Building]. Fortunately the custodians usually let students stay after hours—if they caught you they just turned the other way,” says Anderson. He and his cohorts from the class of 1956 developed such a close relationship with the building’s janitor that they held their senior picnic at his home.
Albright remembers how architecture and architectural engineering students spent not only late nights in studio, but weekends as well. “We had classes on Saturdays, so while we were working [in Main Engineering Building, later named Sackett Building], everyone would be walking up the mall to the football game … But my education was great because of studio. Your work was visible, so you were accountable.”
Because students spent so much time in studio—day and night—they also interacted frequently with the department’s support staff. Peg Schultz served as department secretary and managed the architecture reading room for more than 30 years, beginning in the 1950s. “She was the operational backbone of the department. She was the first person alumni looked up when they came back to campus,” says Anderson. “Students jokingly called her ‘Dean Schultz’ because she would tell us what we could and could not do.”
Despite architecture students’ long hours, they did plan one very visible social event—a Beaux Arts Ball. A long and popular tradition for schools of architecture, the first ball was held at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th century. Over the years, architecture schools have held traditional costume galas or invited students to dress as their favorite designs. The Penn State event was a themed costume ball.
Although that elaborate event is no longer held, Alpha Rho Chi, the professional architecture fraternity, still has a scaled-down costume ball each Halloween. In recent years, the first-year architecture faculty have organized a Halloween event where students dress as buildings, also in the tradition of the Beaux Arts Ball. In addition, the annual Green Design Conference has included a Beaux Arts Ball where students come in costumes made out of natural or recycled material.
Corbelletti Makes His Mark
Italian architect Raniero Corbelletti succeeded Ain as head of the Department of Architecture in 1967. His appointment marked the beginning of a period of tremendous growth, major curricular changes and extensive outreach efforts.
By 1972, enrollment in the department had reached 480 students. Admission
quotas and more selective acceptance procedures brought the enrollment down
to about 250 by 1975, a number the department maintains (approximately) today.
Corbelletti furthered the department’s efforts, begun in the early 1960s, to involve students in real-world architectural projects. “Our primary goal is to provide training for our students in actual situations where they must go out and study all factors involved in the development of architectural projects,” Corbelletti said in a 1968 Penn State news release.
One of Corbelletti’s most visible projects involved studying Pennsylvania courthouses. In 1980, he and a team of faculty members examined existing court facilities, most of which predate 1900, and then made recommendations for short- and long-term improvements that would in turn improve the efficiency of the court system.
Corbelletti, who served as interim dean of the College of Arts and Architecture in 1985–86, died in February 1988 after a battle with cancer. Family and friends created the Corbelletti Design Competition in his memory, in which second- through fifth-year architecture students compete annually for a monetary award.
According to Anderson, the best thing about joining the architecture faculty at Penn State was Raniero Corbelletti. “He managed the department by working with each faculty member individually. He was critical but very tolerant of ideas,” he notes. “Corbelletti promoted a nice academic spirit in the department.”
