ALDRICH PRAISES NEW HOUSE UNITS

"If I am to judge the completed buildings from the drawings which have been made public, Lowell and Dunster Houses will be by far the best buildings architecturally in the University." This statement was made yesterday by William T. Aldrich, prominent Boston architect, when interviewed concerning the new Houses.

"One of the outstanding achievements of the architects is that they have created two towers, one on a square and one on an octagonal plan, which are perfectly harmonious and balance one another," he said. The prevalence of adverse criticism of Dunster House tower among undergraduates was not considered justified by Mr. Aldrich. "The tower of Christ Church College at Oxford of course furnished the basic design for the plan, but that does not seem to me to be basis for adverse criticism. The use of an octangular tower crowned with a dome is one of the main features of a great deal of architecture, even as early as the seventeenth century," was his comment.

Similar to Christ Church

"In following the silhouette of Christ Church tower the architects have not departed from present-day taste in any way. The Dunster House tower is as good Georgian as the Tom tower is good Gothic. They have achieved something which will crown the mass of the building beautifully. The one on Lowell House is of course a modification of that on Independence Hall, but in Dunster the octagonal tower of the Italian Renaissance is the chief influence.

"The architects have taken a form which has been largely used in Europe and modified it to suit the Colonial mass of Dunster House below. The completed group of Houses, following as they do the traditional architecture of the University, with enough variation to make them different from the rest, should form a residence group not to be rivalled anywhere in the country."