The university is demolishing Blewett Hall, Tietjens Hall, and Gaylord Music Library to build residential halls for underclassmen.
“Musicians and music scholars are used to having to advocate for what they do and why it matters. That’s a very familiar position for us to be in,” Alexander Stefaniak, Head of Musicology and Director of Undergraduate Studies, said casually while talking about the demolition of Blewett Hall, Tietjens Hall, and Gaylord Music Library. The comment didn’t sound dramatic or angry, but rather matter-of-fact. As an Indian classical vocalist and veena player, I nodded in agreement.
The University has already announced what will replace these buildings: new residential halls on the South 40, intended to house about 600 sophomores. The halls are being constructed to accommodate the policy requiring sophomores to live on campus starting next academic year. Now, the buildings that have housed the music department for decades are being removed to make space for this requirement — a trade-off that has enraged and disappointed me.
WashU’s plans to demolish the music department’s buildings reveal how the humanities — music, in particular — are always expected to justify their worth. For a university that describes itself as committed to a liberal arts education, the decision raises a broader question of how well this commitment is upheld when the physical spaces that support those disciplines are treated as expendable.
The history of the buildings and the significance of their proximity to each other put into perspective how hard this loss will be to campus culture. Blewett Hall has housed WashU’s music program since 1946, and Gaylord Music Library was built in 1960. For nearly 80 years, the department has existed in the same small cluster of spaces: offices in Blewett, classrooms and practice rooms in Tietjans, and the Library across the courtyard. When you spend time around these buildings, you start to realize how much of the music students’ and faculty’s daily lives depend on that physical closeness. Professors run to the library before class to grab a score. Students stop by a professor’s office before class. Random conversations erupt in the library.
Patrick Burke, chair of Department of Music, explained that under the current relocation plan, the department will be split into offices at Seigle Hall and classrooms, practice rooms, and instructional labs at Lopata House. A department that has long been a close-knit hub will soon be dispersed across campus.
When the University demolishes this space, it’s not just about removing classrooms or offices. It’s also breaking up the physical center where all the small, ordinary interactions have taken place for decades. In the end, how a university organizes its campus says a great deal about what it believes is central to academic life.
Gaylord Music Library is the heart of the space. The collections themselves — the scores, records, and historic journals — will be moved mostly to Olin Library, while some materials will go to West Campus storage. On paper, the materials still exist, the catalog numbers stay the same, and, technically, nothing has been “lost.” However, a dedicated library gives the discipline a visible place on campus where its material, history, and scholarship live together.
As Stefaniak said about the change, “Anytime a library gets knocked down, I consider it a loss on principle.” Once the dedicated library disappears and the collection is folded into a larger system, it becomes easier to diminish and deprioritize the discipline, another way the liberal arts can quietly lose space within the university.
Moreover, many students use these spaces and their resources every day. Tietjens Hall currently has 15 practice rooms and, according to Burke, around 300 students rely on them regularly. Under the current relocation plan, seven practice rooms will be included in the new Lopata House space, while the remaining eight still have no confirmed location.
These rooms are not only used by music majors but also by students studying other subjects who want music to remain a part of their lives while at WashU.
The music department didn’t request or have a say in this relocation. Burke told me that the faculty learned about the demolition in November 2022, after the decision had already been made.
Burke and Stefaniak explained that the music faculty have spent the past four years planning the kinds of spaces the program needs to function, from specialized electronic music labs to soundproof practice areas. Both professors sounded practical and optimistic about the department’s future. They also emphasized that the dean of Arts & Sciences has supported the music department throughout the relocation.
Still, the fact that the department learned about the demolition only after the decision had already been made, and it had no say in the future of its physical home, is dismissive of the people who actually teach, study, and create inside those buildings. The faculty and students were left without a voice in the decision and instead placed in a position of having to advocate for why their work — and the spaces that support it — matter.
Many students have also expressed frustration about how the relocation was handled and questioned whether the school’s accommodations are only due to pressure from the department and students.
“As a music student, we need those practice rooms. The 560 Music Center has, like, six practice rooms, so I’m glad that they are gonna build new practice rooms with even better features, but I feel like it was only because there was pushback, and that kind of upsets me,” Luke David-Pennington, a sophomore studying biology with minors in music and Spanish, said.
While the music department and its community will persist beyond the demolition of these buildings, losing a physical center that has existed for nearly 80 years is a real loss for the people who rely on it. Universities inevitably change over time, but this particular change raises questions about how the University’s values translate to reality, especially when profit is involved. In displacing a department that has occupied the same space for decades for new housing, WashU reveals what spaces it chooses to protect and which ones it’s willing to sacrifice.
Stefaniak said that musicians and music scholars are used to advocating for why their work matters. Why are the humanities the departments that have to prove their worth over and over again? If WashU wants to continue describing itself as a university that values the liberal arts and humanities, then that commitment has to appear not only in mission statements but also in the choices the University makes about the spaces where those disciplines live, grow, and thrive.