The Tuscan Vernacular Story
After the death of his partner Frank Day in 1919, Charles Z. Klauder's designs for the new campus buildings were approved by the Board of Regents of the University in the collegiate gothic style.
A month or two later Klauder returned with the buildings sketched in a new wrap of laid-up sandstone walls, red tile roofs, and Indiana limestone trim.
He asked for this change from the conventional English Collegiate Gothic (like the existing Macky Auditorium) because he felt it would better relate to the Boulder setting and the more proper use of the local sandstone. The Regents accepted his argument, and the first building for liberal arts classrooms and faculty offices was constructed in this style in 1921.
Fifteen other buildings in the "University of Colorado Style" (Tuscan Vernacular Revival) were constructed between 1921 and 1939. To this day, all Boulder campus buildings have been constructed in the unique style and vocabulary of building materials.
