By Celisa Calacal and Isabella Grullón

Chilly temperatures and a continuous stream of rain did not stop Cornell University’s first-year architecture students from partaking in an annual tradition: Dragon Day. Dressed in black clothing with silver lines of paint on their faces, the first-year architecture students paraded their silver metal dragon around Cornell’s campus March 31.

Beginning in 1901, Dragon Day has become a yearly tradition in which the university’s freshman architecture students showcase their talents and pride in their major by building a dragon. Each Dragon Day is marked by a theme, with this year’s theme of “Louder Together” centering on unity and activism. Inspiration for the 2017 Dragon Day theme is rooted in the diversity of this year’s freshman architecture class: 58 students who speak 17 languages hailing from 23 countries across the world.

Brian Beeners, Rand Hall shop technician and Dragon Day advisor who has overseen the event for the past 30 years, said Dragon Day is a celebration of architecture. He said the project provides a bonding experience for the program’s first-year students because it offers the opportunity to build a large model together.

“They have to work together to make that happen,” Beeners said. “They have to deal with permits, authorities, so they’re actually dealing with the real world and they’re dealing as a big group.”

Constructing the dragon is a two-month process, and the night before Dragon Day, members of the team spend nearly all night taking over Rand Hall to finish building their dragon. Freshman Ami Mehta, one of the construction heads for Dragon Day, said finishing the construction of the dragon took the entire night. Despite this, she said the day turned out better than expected.

“Obviously we never really thought about the fact that it was already Dragon Day because we’ve been working on this for ages and suddenly it’s over,” Mehta said. So it’s just so quick. But I wouldn’t say it was anticlimactic — it was anything but anticlimactic.”

This year’s dragon was made of metal, making it only the second time metal was used for the dragon. Freshman Benjamin Magin, another construction head for the project, said the group had to be more cautious when building the dragon because of the delicate material.

“Making it all out of metal was definitely ambitious because it was a lot heavier, more expensive,” he said.

While Dragon Day is largely a student-driven tradition, Beeners said the university has become more involved in the event following instances of excessive rowdiness and even violence. Following the parade around campus, it was traditional for the architecture students to burn the dragon. But because of safety reasons, Mehta said the university stepped in to ban the burning.

This is not the first time the freshmen have chosen to politicize Dragon Day through its theme. In the past, freshmen have used Dragon Day to protest Prohibition in 1920, the Vietnam War in 1968 and “Red Tapism” in 2000.

As for why it is a dragon that is built every year, Beeners said the reasoning behind the decision is immersed in mysticism, as Dragon Day has become a student-led tradition for over 100 years.

“So much of it at this point is steeped in legend,” he said. “We have some ideas. We can speculate a little bit, but no one’s really kept track of the history of it.”

Dragon Day also highlights the rivalry between Cornell’s architecture school and engineering school. In past Dragon Day celebrations, Beeners said conflicts between the two would reach a violent peak, with engineering students attempting to destroy or sabotage the dragon. He said the root of this tensions stems from the differences between architects and engineers.

“The architects have these crazy ideas and the engineers have to figure out how to make it happen,” Beeners said. “So the architects will say, ‘Oh, the engineers are slaves to the architects.’ And the engineers are like, ‘You guys are nuts.’”

Aside from this historic rivalry, freshman engineering major Jakob Youngblood said he enjoyed Dragon Day.

“It’s my first Dragon Day so I thought it would well be worth it to come and see the bizarre architecture students and the weird activities,” he said. “But it’s definitely worth it. … And the dragon is really cool as well.”

Despite the constant rain throughout the afternoon, Magin said the day went as planned and that he would even consider participating in Dragon Day again.

“Everything worked perfectly,” he said. “And I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”