The removal of an architecture student's project this week has again brought controversy over the right of expression into the open.

Glenn Walker (freshman-architecture) said his project for Architecture 120, visual communications, was taken down because a group of students found his work offensive.

"I feel it is a form of censorship," Walker said.

Walker chose not to describe his work more than to say it was an abstract view of "honky-tonk," adding that he would rather let his work speak for itself.

The project was to be the combination of a "honky-tonk-scape and town-scape" and was to be done in watercolor.

The piece was removed by Peter Magyar, head of the architecture department who said that he was required by policy to remove the piece.

"Since I have received a written complaint -- as an administrator, I followed the procedure," he said.

The complaint called for the "taking down" of the piece and apologies from Magyar and Richard Alden, assistant professor of architecture and the instructor of Architecture 120.

Alden was not available for comment.

Sharon Moore (senior-architecture) was the author of the complaint that called for the removal of the piece.

"When I first saw it, I couldn't believe it," Moore said.

Everyone who Moore showed the piece to came to the same conclusion as she did -- that the painting was of a female's buttocks, she said.

Moore stressed that the request was not an attack on Walker -- she said didn't even know he was the artist -- but rather a criticism of the administration and professors' choice to display the work in the context of the situation.

The gallery was in a hallway between the architecture and landscape architecture departments, an area that sees a lot of pedestrian traffic during the day.

Moore said she wrote the complaint after two weeks of contemplation, stressing that it was not a spur of the moment decision.

If the work was hanging in a gallery, Moore said she would not have cared, but since her schedule necessitates walking between the two departments, she had no choice but to view the piece.

Mike Jemtrud (senior-architecture), who along with Moore and four other students signed the complaint, agreed.

"Personally, I found it offensive," Jemtrud said.

Jemtrud said that if it could happen to Goya, a renowned artist, it could happen here to a first-year architecture student.

Goya's work, Nude Maja, was taken down at the Schuylkill Campus last year in response to a sexual harassment charge make by a unnamed female professor.

Jemtrud said he couldn't see the piece as art.

"It's not a piece of art, because . . . art's not that naive," he said.

Chuck Manley (senior-bachelor of architecture) and teaching assistant of Architecure 120 sits on the "jury" that decides which students' works are shown in the gallery.

Manley disagreed with the removal of the painting.

"It's censorship, without a question," Manley said.

The jury consists of six architecture students -- three men and three women -- and judges the work on its quality, design and conformity to the requirements of the assignment.

Manley said Walker's work met every requirement.

This was the first time that a piece had been taken down, Manley said, basing his statement on his knowledge gained through conversations with professors.

Manley said Magyar apologized verbally to the class, but said he did not believe that Alden had.

"Magyar was just trying to please everyone," Manley said.