Seeing the forest for the... poles?

If there was one euphemism I would use to describe the general layout/floorplan of Boalt Hall, it would have to be "idiosyncratic."

And by "idiosyncratic", I mean "ghetto."

For starters, whoever designed the floorplan for this place obviously had little more a straightedge and some sort of sadistic streak because there are waaay too many 90 degree blind corners in this place for it to have been accidental. As a result, there are concave "don't even think about shoplifting because I can see you" mirrors everywhere:



















Second, funny things happen when lack of foresight runs head-on into budget constraints. Case in point: the Pole Forest.

This is the beloved pole forest:



















Apparently the story behind this oddity is that back before the North Addition was added (you can see the entrance to it on the other side), these poles used to be part of the stacks, with shelves mounted between them. When it came time to create a passageway between the old library and the new addition, they found that the poles were actually integrated into the superstructure, and that it would be exorbitantly expensive to remove them (i.e. they had better things to spend the money on).

The result? One must take a surreal "Alice in Wonderland-esque" trip through the magical pole forest in order to get to the other side. The little patio lights strung along the top only add to the general atmosphere of weirdness.

To be fair, once you do get to the other side, you find that the was trip well worth it. The North Addition (being new and modern) is gorgeous, and good thing too, since I spend most of my time there.



















Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder sometimes what this law school could have looked like had the architect not been curvilinearly-challenged.