Another very interesting campus is the University of Texas at El Paso . The Bhutanese architecture is striking.
The architecture at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA is horrible, but the patch of ground it occupies—an expansive Douglas-fir forest with miles of trails and a beach on Eld Inlet on Puget Sound—is beautiful:
It’s beautiful. Unrelentingly patrician, but definitely beautiful. I almost went there.
Heh, both of my alma maters got mentioned in one post!
Wren building in winter, William and Mary and Crim Dell Bridge.
UNC, the classic picture postcard shot and the campus castle.
Wellesley College in MA is beautiful. I spent two summers there at a camp and I loved it. Too bad I was not a girl or else I would have applied for college there.
Wow. The architecture reminds me a lot of Royce Hall at UCLA, but the surroundings remind me of my few years I lived in Durango. If I weren’t stuck in LA, I’d try to go to CU Law. I’d probably never want to study though, I’d always be camping in the mountains. Heh.
UCLA isn’t an especially pretty campus, but it’s not ugly at least. Well, North campus isn’t. There’s a Japanese garden that I have yet to go see which is supposed to be very pretty. The sculpture garden ain’t bad, but it’s not breathtaking or anything. I always thought UChicago was gorgeous, and as a Classics major I would love to attend it.
I love UVA. The University of Richmond in Virginia is nice, too.
The classic brick & ivy New England college look - Colby College
I love the Michigan State campus, but I think that’s mostly because it’s home. It has some very beautiful areas and gorgeous plantings, especially in the older parts of the campus and along the river. It hasn’t been planned in one overall style, so even though some of the older buildings were built with a similar style, it doesn’t have the same effect as other campuses who have a core campus with a strongly-defined architectural style (like Cambridge, for instance).
I’m accustomed to large campuses (MSU and OSU) with a steady stream of new buildings. In both cases, architectural styles vary widely through the ages. How do universities like Princeton, Duke and Cambridge handle the style of newer buildings? Do they have parts of their campuses where they simply don’t build anything new? Do they build new buildings in the same style? (I remember seeing at least one newer building at Princeton that was a very modern style, but I don’t remember where it was located within the campus - I visited about 20 years ago…
GT
I’m biased but I don’t think anything tops Michigan State. The older part of campus, around the circle with Beaumont Tower, the Ag Hall, museum, Berkey, all magnificent architecture. The landscaping is beautiful and the Red Cedar’s cascade near the Administration Building is quite peaceful. Don’t worry about construction, park your car and have a nice walk. Make sure you see new Sparty over by the West IM and old Sparty displayed in the addition to Spartan Stadium.
I have to give a solid second to University of Colorado at Boulder. The architecture is a bit uniform so that’s kind of a minus but the view of the Flatirons is very nice indeed.
I have to agree, although it has improved a lot since the days when it had a street with cars and streetcars running right through it.
I was less impressed with UVA than most people seem to be. The Jefferson-designed rotunda is quite beautiful, but the quad in front of it is pretty nondescript. I love Princeton. UCSB is rather dull and the beach you can walk to from the campus is a sorry excuse for a beach (and the water is much too cold, even in mid-summer).
UC Santa Cruz is a beautiful campus not just to look at, but live in. It’s not something that can really be captured in pictures, because the place is so huge and spread out. The different parts of campus are separated by paths between redwood forest; getting to class is like going on a nature hike. It’s an adventure to find new shortcuts through the trees to get to various parts of campus. There’s so much variety here, it doesn’t really even seem like a college campus, it’s more like a summer camp.
The University of where???
SoP BA UCSD 1980 MLS UCLA 1984.
(We who hold credentials from the other nine campus of UC take exception to “University of California” being used to mean just Berkeley.)
If you have read this far and still not checked out Ludovic’s links to Cornell, you have passed up the most georgeous campus photos yet! (Post #26)
Cornell is also one of the “Ivy League” schools and is located in New York.
I visited The University of Kansas once and I thought it was beautiful.
Another vote for my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz. Walking to class, walking the sunlight stream through the redwoods, then coming onto a clearing, with the Pacific down below…magical.
Neither Cambridge nor Oxford has either a “core campus” or a “strongly-defined architectural style” (unless by the latter you just mean “old” 
). In both cases, the colleges grew up in the town centers and are mixed in with public buildings, churches, markets, etc. In neither case was there a central body that said “let’s build a University on a specific site” (as was the case with the older US colleges and universities).
Here is a list of the colleges of Oxford University, and here’s the equivalent list for Cambridge. Note that Oxford has colleges founded in each century from the 13th through the 20th centuries [the same is true of Cambridge, except there was no college founded betwen 1596 and 1800 – (damned Fen-dwelling slackers!) ;)]. Until the Gothic Revival of the 18th century, the architecture of each addition to a college tended to be contemporary, so as one walks through an older college, one sees buildings of several different centuries – however, to most tourists they just look “really old” and thus may seem to be of a single architectural style. Take for example New College, Oxford. The answer to the obvious tourist question is “well, it was New when they founded it — back in 1379!” [cf. le pont neuf in Paris].
I can answer this for Oxford and Cambridge; my examples will be from the former since that’s the one I know better.
When an existing college – particularly a medieval one of the sort that typifies “Oxbridge” – added a new building, it generally reflected the contemporary style (although they may have tried to match the stonework of earlier buildings). In recent years, attempts have been made to “hide” modern architecture within older colleges, by building low and keeping the sightlines intact. Thus Christ Church, Oxford, founded in the 16th Century (first by Cardinal Wolsey, then – twice! – by Henry VIII), has the 16th C. Tom Quad (with Christopher Wren’s 17th C. Tom Tower), the 18th C. Peckwater Quad, the 19th C. Meadow Building, all adjoining Christ Church Cathedral, which was the former Priory of St Frideswide, dating back to the 12th C. However, when Blue Boar Quadrangle was built in the 1960’s (pic), it was designed so as not to be visible from the rest of the college. One can roam around the central areas of Oxford and Cambridge without really being aware of the extent to which there are “modern” buildings tucked away (unless one views from above, e.g. from the tower of St Mary’s Church).
When Nuffield College was founded in 1937 near the city core, a medieval-inspired modern design was chosen so as not to be too jarring. However, for recently-founded colleges such as Wolfson, a couple of miles north from the city centre, a completely modern style was used since there’s nothing medieval to clash with.
University buildings such as science labs (built in the late-19th and 20th centuries) are in their own separate area, and form tends to follow function. [It’s not like the liquid nitrogen tanks are covered by medieval awnings ;).] There are no longer science labs attached to individual colleges (as there were up until around WW2), so little attempt is made to match older architectural styles.
Antonius – which is generally regarded as the better university of the two?
Central Campus - defined by a broad, tree-framed lawn crisscrossed with walking paths - is a darned pleasant place and I’ve often heard it called “one of the loveliest in the midwest.” Especially when ringed by venerable, dignified buildings such as the 1897 Campanile, the 1902 Beardshear Hall, and the 1928 Memorial Union.
(Disclaimer: 14-year Ames resident, summer student, Cyclone fan.)
All college campuses I’ve ever seen, even modern ones with relatively drab and utilitarian contemporary style buildings, have a peaceful and quiet quality you don’t find elsewhere. There are few cars, and lots of people walking between classes, or just situated outdoors, studying. The usual commercial intrusions into modern life are less noticeable, although this is changing as I notice that national and regional restaurant franchises are taking over some of the campus dining facilities. In some ways, that is not an entirely bad thing.
I’ll second UC Berkeley.
UCLA is surprisingly beautiful for an urban campus stuck in the middle of traffic-bound West L.A. The newer buildings that have been added over the years are not in the ornate style of the four buildings from the 1920s, but they harmonize beautifully with them.
My CSUF campus changes venue from the bed to the couch in the living room to a local coffeehouse (I attend online). In some ways, that’s the most beautiful campus I know.