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The buildings of Nuffield College, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, are to the west of the city centre of Oxford, England, and stand on the site of the basin of the Oxford Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield; he gave land for the college, as well as £900,000 (approximately £246 million in present-day terms) to build and endow it. The architect Austen Harrison, who had worked in Greece and Palestine, was appointed by the University to design the buildings. His initial design, heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, was rejected by Nuffield, who called it "un-English"〔 and refused to allow his name to be associated with it. Harrison reworked the plans, aiming for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture",〔 as Nuffield wanted. Construction of the second design began in 1949 and was finished in 1960. Progress was hampered by post-war building restrictions, and the effects of inflation on Nuffield's donation led to various cost-saving changes to the plans. In one change, the tower, which had been planned to be ornamental, was redesigned to hold the college's library. It was the first tower built in Oxford for 200 years and is about tall, including the flèche on top. The buildings are arranged around two quadrangles, with residential accommodation for students and fellows in one, and the hall, library and administrative offices in the other. The chapel has stained glass windows designed by John Piper. The architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin said that Harrison's first design was Oxford's "most notable architectural casualty of the 1930s";〔 it has also been described as a "missed opportunity" to show that Oxford did not live "only in the past".〔 Reaction to the architecture of the college has been largely unfavourable. In the 1960s, it was described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction".〔 The tower has been described as "ungainly",〔 and marred by repetitive windows. The travel writer Jan Morris wrote that the college was "a hodge-podge from the start".〔 However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, although unimpressed with most of the college, thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted it would "one day be loved".〔 The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, and claimed that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower – as well as the rest of the college.〔 ==Lord Nuffield's donation== The history of Nuffield College dates from 16 November 1937, when the university entered a Deed of Covenant and Trust with Lord Nuffield.〔 Nuffield, known as William Morris before he was raised to the peerage, was an industrialist and the founder of Morris Motors, which was based in Cowley, east Oxford.〔〔 For the creation of Nuffield College and for his other donations (which included funding a chair of Spanish studies and donating £2 million in 1936 for a school of medical research),〔Hibbert, p. 284〕 he was described in 1949 by an editorial in ''The Times'' as "the greatest benefactor of the University since the Middle Ages". He donated land on New Road, to the west of the city centre near the mound of Oxford Castle, on the site of the largely disused basin of the Oxford Canal.〔Tyack, p. 300〕 In 1937, ''The Times'' described the half-mile between the railway station and the city (an area including the site of the proposed college) as "something between a refuse heap and a slum"; Nuffield had originally bought the canal basin to beautify that part of the city before he had the idea of building a college to accomplish this. As well as the land, Nuffield gave £900,000 to build the college and to provide it with an endowment fund.〔 His plan was to create a college that specialised in engineering and business methods to provide a link between academia and industry, for which he initially offered the University £1 million; £100,000 was used for a physical chemistry laboratory (completed in 1941), of which he approved. However, although he was persuaded to put the remainder towards a college for social science studies instead, he still felt "cheated".〔Morrell, J. B. "The non-medical sciences 1914–1939", in Harrison. pp. 144, 158〕 He later described the college as "that bloody Kremlin", "where left-wingers study at my expense".〔Sager, p. 162〕 He was sufficiently pleased with the work of the college to leave it most of his remaining fortune (which was more than £3 million) when he died in 1963, although most of the bequest did not reach the college as it was needed to pay inheritance tax on Nuffield's estate.〔Hibbert, p. 285〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Buildings of Nuffield College, Oxford」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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