``One does not see a building, one experiences it.'' This was architect William Fyfe's philosophy when designing the Calvin College campus in the 1960. He strove to create a unified architecture which would not only fulfill structural requirements but also symbolize the ideologies of Calvin.

There are four main areas of concern in architecture, and based upon the unity of those four concerns, one can determine if a structure (or a whole campus) is successful or not. They are site, program, materials, and technology. The concern with the site is to match the materials and technology with the demands of the environments in the particular area chosen. The program is the purpose of the building. The architect must ask, ``What should the building do?'' The concern is to create a design that will meet the needs of the program. The materials are what the building is made of: bricks, glass, or wood. Here the concern is to address the needs created. Technology is the innovation of design that uses materials creatively, effectively meets the needs of the program, and makes efficient use of the environment.

The planning committee for the building of the Knollcrest Campus was concerned with the unity of these four areas, and with maintaining a continuity of design. Fyfe, the coordinating architect was chosen to fulfill the task of devising a master plan that would meet the needs of Calvin College and Seminary. Fyfe began at the School of Architecture at Yale, and then moved on to Frank Lloyd Wright's school in Wisconsin, where he worked under Wright as an apprentice. Wright was the master of what is known as organic architecture, a philosophy of design that harmonized the organic features of the site with the structure and appearance of the building on the site. Under the influence of Wright, Fyfe developed his own organic style.

When viewing Calvin's architecture, one must keep in mind the origin of Fyfe's style and the concern for the unity of the site, program, materials, and technology. The program as stated in the first college catalog was the following: ``The aim of the College is to give young people an education that is Christian, in the larger and deeper sense that all the class work, all the students' activities should be permeated with the spirit and teaching of Christianity.'' The committee with respect to the unity of the overall design, had to keep in mind the mission of Calvin, curricular goals, faculty research and scholarship goals, and the mission of the Seminary. It is important that the academic planning of the college be congenial with the planning of the physical facilities.

Fyfe followed a certain credo for campus planning in his design of Calvin's campus; it says the following: 1) The quality of learning is influenced by the physical environment. 2) A campus, and its component buildings, should reflect the purposes and programs of the institution. 3) There should be an identifiable, unifying character to a campus (but not monotony). 3) Buildings do not, of themselves, create a campus. But as a consciously-created composition of buildings and open spaces, they do. 5) The campus should have its symbols, or point of focus which may be a natural feature or an architectural element. 6) The physical organization of a campus should be an orderly expression of its functions. (But not rigid, nor regimented.) 7) The way must be kept open for growth and change. 8) The design of the buildings and their arrangement should be responsive to the character of the site. 9) Campuses are for people; they should have human scale - not overbearing monumentality. The atmosphere should be stimulatingly busy but not crowded. They should be convenient, but for pedestrians, and not intruded upon by automobiles.

Fyfe's buildings are organic in that they are carefully integrated into the terrain of the site; they are the color of the soil from which they rise, and a sensitive relationship exists between the landscape and the structure. He believed that man is not separate from nature and that the spaces that man works in area closely interrelated; landscape and building complement each other.

The various buildings were built around one open mall in the attempt to create an integration of all knowledge. Fyfe saw a correlation of the academia, the library, and the campus and three important elements for Christian liberal college. He attempted to show the interrelation and interdependence of these elements in the layout of the buildings in his design, and he attempted a unity between administration and teaching by combining administrative functions and classrooms. Fyfe believed, as Wright did, in humanizing architecture spaces. ``If you make men and women proud of their environment, and happy to the where they are, and give their some dignity and pride in their environment, it all comes out to the good.''