However, the aesthetics of the building along with other buildings constructed during Grayson L. Kirk's tenure was criticized by students, faculty, and critics alike, including Jacques Barzun, Andrew Dolkart, Barry Bergdoll, and Ada Louise Huxtable.

[5][6] Architecture critic Allan Temko noted that the building's long hallways and pattern of two double rooms with a shared bath resembled a “Victorian reformatory” and its lounge “a bus station with Muzak.”[7] In 1962, Temko again criticized Carman as "dull and bureaucratic... [with] skimpy and unimaginative detail.

"[8] Dean of the Yale School of Architecture Robert A. M. Stern, who graduated from Columbia a year after the building's completion, wrote in an unpublished piece that "[Carman and Ferris Booth Halls] are unfortunately mediocre in their conception.

[10][11][12] In November 2021, Carman Hall was evacuated after bomb threats surfaced on Twitter claiming that improvised explosives have been placed in the building.

[42] In his memoir, Photographs of My Father, Paul Spike notes that "not a trace of style ruins the ugly face of Carman Hall.