Gallery: Ogg Hall Through the Years

Ogg Hall has been housing Badgers on the southeast side of campus since 1965, and like other campus buildings of the ’60s (see Humanities), it’s seen its fair share of controversy. For starters, the original Ogg was built perhaps more quickly than strategically to accommodate a student body that doubled between 1959 and 1965. The hall’s two-tower design housed 950 students throughout its 13 floors. But when it came time for renovation, the task proved to be a difficult one because of the aforementioned speed-over-strategy design. Plus, the UW’s campus master plan at the time called for a much more open, airy space — today’s east campus gateway that runs from the lawn of the new Gordon Dining and Event Center all the way to the Lake Mendota shoreline at Alumni Park.

Demolition on the old Ogg Hall began in 2006, and the new Ogg welcomed its first residents for the Fall 2007 semester. Capacity is much smaller than the original 950. Today, around 600 residents live in coed “clusters” of either double or triple rooms. Each cluster of four rooms gets its own bathroom, all rooms offer air conditioning and walk-in closets, and there is a lounge and kitchen on each floor. With the new building and new layout came a new address: the building hopped across Dayton Street from number 716 to 835.

From the ’60s to today, take a look at the history of Ogg Hall!