Being in the faculty of arts at UBC can be hard. Your parents’ friends are always asking what you’re “going to do with that degree,” every other faculty brags that they work harder and worst of all, E-Week is way cooler than Arts Week. However, arts students have a new defender — Buchanan Tower.
For those who haven’t yet encountered it, Buchanan Tower is the massive concrete structure next to IKB that serves as the administrative centre for most arts departments. A new Facebook page claims to be “the result of the concrete and steel constructed in a waffle-like monument to architectural beauty having become self-aware,” and raises more questions than it answers.
![['']](https://storage.googleapis.com/ubyssey/media/renditions/Screen_Shot_2017-01-26_at_9.17.02_PM_YglZhaz.original.png)
Why has the page appeared now? Why is it listed as a “religious organization?” Does the ominous meme declaring, “THEY STILL THINK I AM JUST A TOWER” indicate that the structure is something else — like perhaps a sentient alien spacecraft or a concrete beehive? Whatever the truth is, the tower appears to be benevolent — it describes itself as “a generous overlord” and ends its introductory statement with “peace be to all.” If nothing else, it provides some comfort to exhausted arts students after they hear the same joke about working at Starbucks for the 1,000th time.
![['']](https://storage.googleapis.com/ubyssey/media/renditions/Screen_Shot_2017-01-26_at_9.15.53_PM.original.png)