Alums of a certain age look back on the Architecture Building’s Great Space as the setting for countless studio hours, lectures, thesis and even graduations—but also for its wild transformation each spring to a 1920s speakeasy, the streets of New York City or a star-studded Hawaiian luau. Beaux Arts Ball, the beloved annual fete that ran from the mid-’70s until 2007, was part Halloween costume party, part Hollywood movie set and a dash of high school prom, where elaborate décor and dress dominated the building’s Great Space for one epic night.
Last Friday, the ball was back after a nearly 15-year pause, reimagining the Great Space into an elegant Italian setting for this year’s theme, Venetian Carnival.
“Events like this are a way for people to come together and build community,” said Dawn Jourdan, dean of the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. “Beaux Arts is magical for a lot of people, and many of our alumni stepped up to champion its return.”
First conceived by students of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1892, the spring bacchanal known for high style, costume, and a hefty dose of nudity and debauchery was adopted by many American architecture schools during the second half of the 20th century.
At MAPP, the party was historically open to the entire university, with architecture students selling tickets outside the Stamp for weeks leading up to the event. Students would tap local firms to fund elaborately designed and constructed set pieces based on that year’s theme, a process that commandeered both the Great Space and student productivity for a full week before the event (faculty complaints moved the ball to Preinkert and the Art-Sociology building in later years, and occasional off-campus locations like the Kennedy-Warren in D.C.).
Largely funded by the architecture student government association, there were lean years that required creative financing to pull it off. After realizing the association was in debt in 1981, Gordon Stewart ’82 and his classmates vied for—and secured—$5,000 in student activity fees from the university to pull off “Delirious in New York,” bringing a staggering 840 attendees to the Great Space.
“It featured three bands, a Staten Island Ferry and a permanent grid of Manhattan painted on the floor,” said Stewart. “It continues to live on as one of the most raucous parties in the School’s history.”
It wasn’t until the 2000s that Beaux Arts faded completely from the spring social scene. While it was revived briefly off-campus in 2018, this year’s return is the first Beaux Arts in its original spot, thanks in part to the convergence of student organizations spearheaded by APX President Ayden Harris (B.S. Architecture ‘24), but also the support of the dean and alumni like Grimm+Parker President and CEO Melanie Hennigan, AIA. Sidestepping design studios and MAPP's annual brick-laying event—which this year took place the same day as the ball—Harris and her peers transformed the Great Space with draped fabric and a checkerboard floor. Over 150 students, faculty and staff from the school and across campus came donning masks and headdresses, velvet waistcoats and floor-length gowns later that night to eat, drink and dance in a space they’ve only ever known for schoolwork.
“We have a strong sense of community here but sometimes it feels a bit like commiseration—people put in the work in their classes and they just want to go home,” said APX Vice President Ben Bilo (B.S. Architecture '24). “Maybe this is a way to get people excited and do something fun together after hours that isn’t work, and even reframe how people think about the Great Space.”
Want to see more of the Ball? View the entire Beaux Arts 2024 album in Flickr. See classic pictures for Balls of the past here.
