Originally built to alleviate a student housing crisis on campus, Devonshire House (begun in 1906) was completed just in time to become a residence for the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War. Three sombre sandstone buildings form an open-ended quadrangle. A fourth residence, fronting Devonshire Place, was to be built “later.” When Devonshire House evolved into a residence for professional-faculty men students, the lack of the fourth building provided an open stage for nine decades of collegiate antics, ranging from avant garde engineering experiments and nude calisthenics, to the endless whoosh of water bombs from third floor windows. This year, “Devo’s” transformation into the (non-residential) Munk Centre for International Studies (Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects) should be complete.

David Winterton