History of the Danna Student Center |
The Danna Student Center was dedicated on December 6, 1964. It is named after Loyola benefactor Dr. Joseph A. Danna, a faculty member of the early Post Graduate School of Medicine who headed a Loyola medical unit in World War I. His gift was approximately $900,000 with total construction costs of $2.5million.
Loyola legend has it that in the 1960s the Jesuits desired to move the institution from our uptown location to lake-front property in Kenner. While designing both the Danna Center and Monroe Hall, the architects were asked to create buildings that looked as if they belonged by Lake Pontchartrain. Therefore, Monroe was designed to look like a docked cruise ship, with a shape that mirrored decks with small oval windows.
The Danna Center was designed as an all-glass building that overlooked the lake, and the steel cheese graters were then added to shade the sun's reflection for people inside the building. Obviously, the Jesuits changed their mind and decided to keep Loyola in Uptown New Orleans, but the buildings were already designed and construction commenced.
Heavily influenced by the Bauhaus School of Design, the Danna Center was designed as a glass cube – a quintessential characteristic of the Modern architectural design movement that used glass for the façade, steel for exterior support, and concrete floors and interior support. Floor plans were functional and logical. For more information about Modern architecture see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture.
