Gina Rhodes

The architecture of Columbia University enhances spectacle, a fact that historically has been both useful and not for protestors. Since 1968, the campus has been bolstered with riot-proof architecture: large gathering space is limited to the center of the campus, which makes visual performance, and the suppression of it, easy. The peculiar American fetish for the Ivy League turns this campus into a tourist attraction in the summer months, when it is impossible to avoid large groups of visitors posing for selfies. The day before CUAD began their sit-in, the lawns were filled with Spikeball trampolines and buff boys playing with the wicked sense that the world was watching their enjoyment. Since then, wide-lens cameras positioned between the metal gates on 116th have turned the semi-privacy of college life into a live-action broadcast.