Located at the corner of Tower and East Roads in the heart of the Cornell University campus, Uris Hall is without a doubt the ugliest building on campus and a very strong contender for "Ugliest University Building" overall. Completed in 1972, Uris Hall was built of cortan steel, an alloy meant to turn a sort of bluish color over time. The catalyst for this color change would be the pollutants present in the air. No one bothered to take into account, however, that Ithaca, being a small town in Upstate New York, had very low levels of air pollution. Consequently, instead of turning blue, the building rusted. (According to Cornell's Infobase, "the building has not reached its target color yet," emphasis added.) It in fact bears an uncanny resemblance to a Borg cube, a similarity that may not be entirely unappropriate. They say that the best thing about being in Uris Hall is that once inside, you don't have to look at it.
The first floor of Uris Hall is home to the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, as well as the Institute for European Studies. The second floor houses the psychology department. In the psychology department lounge, you can find several preserved brains floating in jars. These are part of Cornell's brain collection. One of the brains belonged at one time to John Rulloff, a rather notorious 19th century murderer. Rulloff, for one reason or another, has a bar and grill named after him in Ithaca's Collegetown. Above the psychology department on the third floor is the sociology department. The women's studies department is also housed on the third floor. On the fourth floor, one can find the economics department and the Cornell Abroad offices. Additionally, Uris Hall has an auditorium, which is occassionally used by Cornell Cinema. On the weekends, the elevators travel only between the basement and the first floor.
Columbia University also has a Uris Hall, and it is far more pleasant to look at.