Marshall University Architectural Guide
by Carlos Bozzoli, Architect
The John Deaver Drinko Academy

Gullickson Hall

  
 
View from southwest
  
Current use:
Classrooms, offices, a gymnasium seating 250, a health center, dance studio, rifle range, steam room, and first-aid laboratory. It houses the Environmental Center, the department of health, physical education, and recreation, the Graduate School of In- formation Technology and Engineering (GSITE), the department of military science, and the Marshall University Research Center.
Location: 
North side of Campus, 18th Street and Fourth Avenue, adjoint to the Cam Hender- son Center.
Designers:
Frampton & Bowers, Architects, Huntington
Completed: 
1961
Name: 
To honor Otto ‘Swede” Gullickson, physical education teacher from 1930 until 1963.

This three-story facility is another example of a building proposal thoroughly attached to Modern Architecture theories, on growing influence in the United States from the mid- 1930’s, and triumphant everywhere especially after the II WW. However, this building was originally projected with a symmetrical plan, a rare feature in that architectural current, mainly influenced by Dutch Neoplasticists which distrusted symmetry. Nowadays this building has been partially surrounded by the Cam Henderson Center, which almost overwhelms it. As the new building tried to dissemble the point of union with the Gullickson Hall, it is difficult to grasp the initial symmetrical façade that faces 18th street. The first floor offers a wide range of windows, with horizontal bands, that enhances horizontality.