Comment Corner: The Forum
The launch of the 2024/25 academic year brought a new addition to the University of Warwick campus, and with it, an unprecedented tirade of discourse and criticism. The modest collection of chairs and tables aside Café Library had never before been given a second thought by students speeding between lectures or racing to join the food queue – this quaint, forgotten corner merely blended into the background of campus architecture. Now, standing proud in all its pink glory, the Forum’s construction has transformed the space into the ultimate debate arena – not only does it aim to foster the discussion of ideas and harness “self expression” for students while enjoying its striking design in person, but the space has become one of the most controversial additions to campus in Warwick’s history, sparking conversation far and wide.
We invited Warwick’s top commenters from both sides of the debate to voice their views on the Forum, each asking the question, is this really what Warwick students want?
Will’s Word On Warwick
A Visual Hate Crime
Should it be destroyed and replaced with a Wetherspoons? Yes.
“In the land of the Forum, the no-eyed man is king” – a wise man.
The Forum is meant to be a place where students gather to express thoughts and discuss ideas, however I would argue that the only discussion that the Forum is good for is conversation about how terrible it is. This dystopian, pink nightmare, which sits outside the library, acting as a smoking area, has been described as a “brutalist interpretation of the barbie movie,” the ugliest, most out-of-place thing on campus, and as actively hateful (mostly by me).
This optical terror is painted entirely in a ghastly shade of bright pink, from floor to partition, from chair to umbrella, to its tables, benches and plant pots: on all sides one is confronted with a wall of pink horror. Visually, it’s a disaster – there’s way too much pink and it’s terribly out of place. From afar it either looks as if someone has suffered the largest strawberry Frube explosion in recorded history, or that a flock of passing flamingos all chose it as a place to spontaneously combust. Interestingly, the University of Warwick describes the colour choice as “striking” – presumably they mean “striking” in the same way that a baseball bat to the face is. The university also describes the colour choice as “evoking warmth” – maybe that’s true, mostly in the sense that it is highly reminiscent of the fiery pits of hell.
It is possible that, without the garishly nightmarish colour palette, this could be a basically okay idea
We should consider the idea that the library smoking area may have been redesigned intentionally badly to discourage youth smoking and to save lives. Since the Forum is so visually unappealing and embarrassing to stand near, there is little doubt that hundreds of students have been discouraged from smoking there. It is also possible that the sheer visual horror of it all may have shocked smokers into action, causing them to swear off their addiction forever. However, it is also feasible that the Forum may have had the adverse effect, as hundreds of students have likely already looked upon it, gone mad at the sight of the thing, and promptly launched themselves off the top of the FAB.
To find out more I polled my friend, who smokes, and he said: “I don’t like the Forum.” I have since extrapolated this data to uncover that an estimated 100% of Warwick smokers do not like the Forum. Perhaps then, the Forum is discouraging smokers and ultimately saving more lives in the long term.
For those lucky few who haven’t yet seen the Forum – although I’m not quite sure how that could be the case given its colour palette and the fact that it can, presumably, be seen from space – I would describe it thusly: it looks like an explosion in a strawberry milk factory and was presumably designed by a seven-year-old girl. Of course, it’s possible that the designer of the Forum is colour blind and intended it to be a nice blue, purple or green, or that they were more traditionally blind, in the sense that they could not see anything at all – both theories would certainly make a great deal of sense.
According to the University, the Forum is supposed to be a place for “impromptu talks,” or as non-sociopaths call them, “conversations.” This has, in fairness, been a revelation, as previously there was no designated space for “conversation” at Warwick and, thankfully, the Forum’s construction this year meant that I was finally able to break my one year of on-campus silence.
I think I speak for everyone when I strongly encourage the University to repurpose and recycle the materials used, as soon as physically possible
So, aside from looking like Barbie’s dreamhouse, what else is the Forum for? Well, it’s supposed to be an Athenian-esque place for “talks, performances (such as spoken word, acoustic music and theatre), intellectual debates, reading groups, and general convening.” Whilst I’m pretty sure that one look at the Forum would send a newly resurrected Plato into a stroke-induced coma, it is possible that, without the garishly nightmarish colour palette, this could be a basically okay idea. Unfortunately, the designer, who was presumably either Elle Woods from Legally Blond, the villain of the High School Musical films, blind, or looking to use up all their pink paint, failed to pre-empt the fact that no self-respecting human being is going to stand up on a bench for some impromptu spoken word poetry – although we are at Warwick and I’m hesitant to speak too soon on this front.
Interestingly, the University says that the Forum was made from “sustainable materials that can be renewed, repurposed or recycled again.” This is great, and I think I speak for everyone when I strongly encourage the University to repurpose and recycle the materials used, as soon as physically possible.
On a serious and concluding note, this pink monstrosity is a complete eyesore. It sticks out like a sore thumb, has a laughable list of nonsense purposes, and is reported to have cost around £200,000 – surely, this is not the most effective use of the £9,000+ we give them each year. We can only hope that the university will see sense, remove the Forum and replace it with another £20k acorn or, if we’re very lucky, a Wetherspoons.
In Defence of Progress
By Martin Day
In defending the Forum, I take on a noble tradition of pro bono defence work that stretches back to the orators of Ancient Athens. To give one’s own talents to argue the case of those who cannot is perhaps the purest distillation of our rules-based legal system there is, one that upholds the sacred principle of the ‘fair trial’. Indeed, given the importance of fairness to our modern, morality-based society, many would surely argue my actions are part of a broader movement defending the very fabric of civilisation itself.
Probably.
Granted, I’m not a lawyer – indeed I’m not even a law student. But I’d like to think the amorphous, metaphysical entity of the Forum would appreciate it all the same. Most pressingly, I want to confront and thoroughly rubbish the most common complaint levelled against the Forum: that it is an ‘eyesore.’
Clearly, many Warwick students find the new space’s bright colours distressing. They regard its elegant parasols and gently curving benches with suspicion, bordering on open hostility. Doubtlessly, they wish to pick up the small, charming stones scattered around the space’s trees and hurl them with vicious abandon through the quaint, pink chain-link fence running along the Forum’s boundaries.
To these urges, I can only express my dismay that our society has become so deeply, irredeemably puritan. This instinct to lash out and destroy anything that dares to break our society’s self-imposed constructs is antithetical to everything a university education should represent.
There is something fundamentally Luddite about these tantrums in the face of progress
Think, for one moment, where we would be if, when confronted with fire for the first time those thousands of years ago, our earliest ancestors had simply shrieked in terror and extinguished those strange, colourful flames? Or, casting back even earlier, if our primordial forefathers, when contemplating striking out onto land for the very first time, had mistrusted the queer, shimmering world beyond the ocean surface, and instead shrunk further into the murky depths below?
I am deeply disturbed by such a unanimous rejection of creative expression, and such a longing to return to the way things were – as if the rotting benches and stained brick walls of the space before were in any way desirable. There is something fundamentally Luddite about these tantrums in the face of progress. For better or worse – progress. These are the bylines by which our civilisation has been raised from the mud, striving ever upwards to new possibilities.
Instead, all of you, led like sheep in an Orwellian crusade against the strange and the beautiful, seek to drag our University back down into the mire. This Forum is more than a recreational space, this debate more than just a disagreement over colour preferences: this is but one anecdote in the great raging disagreement of our age, between innovation and free expression, and censorship and regression. God-willing, there will soon be a thousand Forums, covering every inch of this miserable, grey campus in fluorescent, joyous pink. If nothing else, it’ll make washing away the goose shit easier.
The Pink Expanse
A recent article in The Boar discussed the new ‘Forum’ space, constructed outside of the library in the heart of campus. Contrary to the claims of its developers (who maintain that it will create a “playful” environment), this pink monstrosity is best understood as a monolith of the decadence of Western civilisation and as a portent of the coming fall of mankind.
If you believe that I am exaggerating, let me add to my thoughts a bit further.
They intend to round out all the rough edges of campus and student life that makes it so rich and worthwhile
Once upon a time, the corner outside of ‘Cafe library’ was the pinnacle of high society at Warwick. A gaggle of wealthy international students remained there at all times of day, puffing away at their cigarettes and vapes to the extent that they created a microclimate with air about as clean as a provincial Chinese city.
On many an all-nighter in my first year, I would go to that corner to take a short break – it was an oasis in the desert for me. It also often provided entertainment: I once overheard a French student loudly discussing the collapse of her polyamorous relationship(s) on the phone.
But no longer. The corporate-brained, power-point-presenting dementors who run this university have descended from Azkaban to impose their version of ‘fun.’
The Forum looks like a deleted scene from Barbie. It is so brightly coloured that if you happen to walk by it, it may burn out your retinas. No one wants to sit there.
This is part of an attempt by the university to make itself a more professional, corporate environment. They intend to round out all the rough edges of campus and student life that makes it so rich and worthwhile. In the vision of the university, there is no chain smoking on campus, nor any messy polyamorous relationships. Only the bland expanse of pink.
Comment Corner, as part of the Opinion Comedy Column, is satirical and intended for comedic purposes only.
Comments (1)
Such a fan of comment corner! What a great piece!