Since its completion in 1974, Faner Hall has been the subject of intense rumor and scrutiny.

Jon Davey, associate professor in architecture, remembers the early student reaction.

Students came here, [and] they hated this whole area, Davey said. They splashed paint all over it, and the administration came by and cleaned it all up.

Once inside, students are confronted with endless corridors of bustling activity and a staircase in the C-wing that seems to reach to infinity.

The name Faner Hall is the legacy of Robert Faner, an English professor who died in the early 60s.

After its construction, Faner Hall won an award for excellence from the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Geoff Ritter, a freshman in history from Pekin, finds Faner Hall an unpleasant experience.

I think the building is terrifying. I can’t find anything in there, Ritter said.

Adding to the students’ ill-will toward the building is the flurry of rumor surrounding the building itself, both its history and its true purpose.

The architect that designed Faner Hall committed suicide.

False. Faner Hall originally was designed by Robert Geddes, who is alive and well in Philadelphia.

There is more than one Faner Hall in the United States.

True. There are three buildings that share Faner Hall’s basic floor plan at John Stockton College in New Jersey, the Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Studies and Southern Illinois University.

Robert Geddes won an award for his design from the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Faner Hall was designed to be riotproof.

False. The building was designed long before the University ever had a problem with civil disorder. The hallways and stairways are narrow not for crowd control but to conserve classroom space.

Betty Mitchell was an associate professor in English when the University decided to build Faner Hall and was on an administrative committee that helped the building become a reality.

Mitchell, now retired, remembers the reasoning behind the University’s decision to build Faner.

“It wasn’t built to be riotproof. We hadn’t even heard of riots when it was planned,” Mitchell said.

According to Geddes, Faner Hall was designed to be beautiful.

“I’ve always thought of college buildings as peaceful and as a place of community,” Geddes said.

You can’t get from one end of the building to the other end and stay on the same floor.

True and False. A student can go from one end of the building to another without going up or down a floor. The only reason a student might need to use the stairs is because the C-wing was added after wings A and B and is half a level higher than the rest of the building.

The other reason students might think they cannot get from one end of the building to another is because at the end of a hallway is an office which is regarded as a dead end.

An office is not a dead end, it actually continues to the other side.

Many students give themselves extra time to find their destination because the building is difficult to navigate through.

Matt Hoerbert, a sophomore in journalism and speech communication from Decatur, finds the building unattractive and confusing.

It looks like a prison, Hoerbert said. I always give myself 10 extra minutes to make sure I get to class on time.

According to Robert Jensen, dean of the college of Liberal Arts, the building is not as confusing as some might think.

Jensen designed the map standing outside the east side of the building and said there is a logical way through Faner.

With few exceptions, the doors are color coded. If the door is red, it is the A-wing, yellow or orange is B-wing and blue is the C-wing.

The building is backward, which nullifies the effects of the sun shields.

According to Davey, the shields on the east side of the building are facing the right way. The shields on the west side are not.

They should be facing that [opposite] direction so as the western sun goes down, it won’t come into the building, but now it will be coming in here, Davey said.

Although it was constructed more than 20 years ago, Faner Hall remains the subject of intense controversy. According to Geddes, it was designed to be as much avant garde as it was functional.

In the late 60s and early 70s, University architecture was the most important in the world, Geddes said. Faner really tries to be both sculpture and building.