“If you ask freshmen why they chose their colleges, they usually say one of two things,” says Baltimore architect Adam Gross, who’s worked on projects at the University of Virginia and Swarthmore. “Either they got a good financial aid package or they thought the campus was beautiful.”
Sewanee, The University of the South: Sewanee, Tenn.
This 13,000-acre campus on the Cumberland Plateau overlooking the Tennessee Valley combines Gothic-inspired architecture with magnificent surroundings: forest, lakefront bluffs, and a garden ravine that follows a stream through campus. In spring, it blooms with daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips.
Photo-op:All Saints’ Chapel draws inspiration from the University Church at Oxford and Notre Dame in Paris.
To-Do List:Burgers at Shenanigans followed by a show at the Tennessee Williams Center, named after the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright who left his estate to Sewanee.
University of the South/Sewanee
University of Washington: Seattle, Wash.
The eye-catching Collegiate Gothic Suzzallo Library at UW’s Seattle campus has 35-foot-high stained-glass windows and elaborately gilded vaulted ceilings that soar 65 feet in the air. But come spring, the Quad’s 30 Yoshino cherry trees steal the spotlight with blooms of delicate pink petals set against red-brick buildings (peak cherry blossom season, mid-March to early April).
Photo-op:The Drumheller Fountain for spot-on views of snowcapped Mount Rainier.
To-Do List:Musical acts at the newly renovated Neptune Theatre, which debuted in the University District in 1921.
University of Washington/University Photography
Stanford University: Palo Alto, Calif.
The entryway to Stanford’s 8,180-acre campus is arguably the grandest of any college campus: a mile-long, tree-lined Palm Drive, which leads up to the expansive green Oval, red-clay-roof-tiled Main Quad, and the campus’s crown architectural jewel, Memorial Church, with its striking mosaic façade.
Photo-op:The view of campus—and all the way to San Francisco on a clear day—from the Hoover Tower observation platform.
To-Do List:The Cantor Arts Center’s collection of 170 bronzes by Auguste Rodin, among the largest outside Paris, includes theGates of HellandBurghers of Calais.
Tina Case of Case Rust Photography
Princeton University: Princeton, N.J.
Gray stone buildings like the University Chapel and Cleveland Tower are pure Collegiate Gothic splendor. But the 500-acre campus’s beauty extends beyond their doors. “Princeton has beautiful buildings, but the exquisite landscaping amplifies them even more,” explains Boston-based architect Mark deShong. Courtyards, idyllic small greens, and crisscrossing footpaths dot the campus.
Photo-op:The handsome ivy-covered Nassau Hall is not only the oldest building on campus, but also a former home to the Continental Congress.
To-Do List:The Princeton Art Museum collection which ranges from remarkable Mayan figures to Andy Warhol’sBlue Marilyn.
Princeton University, Office of Communications
Kenyon College: Gambier, Ohio
Kenyon’s hilltop setting in tiny Gambier makes for one of the country’s most idyllic campus walks: the 10-foot-wide Middle Path, which spans the length of the college and through town, shaded by massive trees that glow fiery orange in the fall. Veer off the path for Kenyon’s castle-like Victorian Gothic Ascension Hall and the Greek Revival Rosse Hall with its elegant columns.
Photo-op:In front of Old Kenyon, the college’s first permanent building, with its multicolored spire.
To-Do List:The 14-mile Kokosing Gap Trail, a paved path built on a former railroad line, for biking through Knox County’s small towns and through campus, past rolling farmland, and along the gentle Kokosing River.
Courtesy of Kenyon College Office of Public Affairs
Swarthmore College: Swarthmore, Pa.
Just southwest of Philadelphia, Swarthmore’s Scott Arboretum nurtures idyllic gardens of hydrangea, lilacs, and tree peonies and a courtyard devoted to fragrant trees and shrubs. The highlight is its outdoor amphitheater, a series of cascading lawn-covered stone tiers shaded by tulip trees and surrounded by Crum Woods and its holly and rhododendron collections.
Photo-op:The Dean Bond Rose Garden has 200-plus varieties and views of stately Parrish Hall in the background.
To-Do List:Gardening classes and tours at the arboretum; topics range from growing maples to the benefits of green roofs.
Courtesy of Swarthmore College
University of San Diego:San Diego, Calif.
Some campuses are an amalgam of styles; the University of San Diego sticks to just one, and what a glorious one it has chosen—the Spanish Renaissance, with its elaborate façades, delicate ironwork, and carved woodwork. Ocean views and palm-tree-lined courtyards only add to the paradise-on-campus appeal.
Photo-op:The Immaculata Chapel, with its piercingly blue dome, visible from much of the city.
To-Do List:A walk around the Garden of the Sea, behind the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, and its serene reflecting pool and gardens overlooking Mission Bay and the Pacific Ocean.
Courtesy of University of San Diego
Lewis & Clark College: Portland, Ore.
Six miles from downtown lies this 137-acre parklike campus of verdant forests, sweeping pathways, and stone walls. A tree walk with native species encountered by the two explorers for whom the college was named on their epic journey west surrounds the Frank Manor House—originally built as a 35-room private mansion.
Photo-op:The serene Reflecting Pool, bordered by a wall of wisteria, for a stellar view of Mount Hood.
To-Do List:A day hike through surrounding Tryon Creek State Park. Begin with coffee brewed with beans from Stumptown Coffee Roasters at the Lewis & Clark bookstore.
Courtesy of Lewis and Clark College
Cornell University: Ithaca, N.Y.
Ambitious campus planners wanted to create a main quad over dramatic Lake Cayuga, the longest of the Finger Lakes. “It’s the idea of putting education on a high platform,” says architect Mark deShong. That original plan evolved, and the beautiful setting now accommodates both historic structures (McGraw Tower) and contemporary ones like the I. M. Pei–designed Johnson Museum of Art—whose walls screen movies on summer evenings—and the new Milstein Hall by Rem Koolhaas.
Photo-op:Cascadilla Gorge, whose eight waterfalls drop more than 400 feet from Cornell’s campus to downtown Ithaca.
To-Do List:The paved paths that wind through Cornell Plantation’s 150-acre arboretum; climb to the Newman Overlook for a sweeping panoramic view.
Courtesy of Cornell University
Indiana University: Bloomington, Ind.
To explore IU’s flagship campus, follow the meticulously kept red-brick path that starts at the Sample Gates and winds through Dunn Woods, filled with 80 varieties of mature trees, and the Old Crescent Historic District with its carved limestone structures. Among the most impressive is the Student Building with its soaring clock tower.
Photo-op:The limestone Sample Gates where nearby flowerbeds bloom with bright red tulips in the spring.
To-Do List:I. M. Pei’s IU Art Museum displays more than 30,000 works of art by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. For a more controversial look at the human body, tour the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
Courtesy of Indiana University
University of Virginia: Charlottesville, Va.
How’s this for honors? UVA is the only university in the United States to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site—and Thomas Jefferson chose its founding to be one of only three of his many accomplishments noted on his gravestone (being president wasn’t among them). Jefferson designed the campus’s since-copied layout and even hired its initial faculty and planned the curriculum.
Photo-op:The Neoclassical domed Rotunda, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome.
To-Do List:The Harrison Institute showcases the most comprehensive collection of letters, documents, and early printings of the Declaration of Independence.
Dan Addison/ U. Va Public Affairs
Yale University: New Haven, Conn.
Yale’s collection spans from the Georgian-style red-brick Connecticut Hall to the Postmodernist Ingalls Rink by Eero Saarinen.
Photo-op: Inside the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a six-story glass-enclosed tower set against translucent grained Vermont marble panels.
To-Do List: A performance at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
America’s most beautiful college campuses have the power not only to sway indecisive high school students, of course, but also to attract tourists. Their appeal comes through varying combinations of awe-inspiring architecture, landscaping, and surroundings. To choose among more than 2,600 four-year American colleges, we considered these three key factors as well as architects’ expert opinions.
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“The most important thing to realize is that how landscaping and buildings interconnect is as important as the buildings themselves,” explains Boston-based architect Mark deShong. At Princeton University, for example, “It’s really about landscape,” he says. The campus connects its ivy-covered gray stone buildings with footpaths, idyllic small greens, and courtyards that create an intimate villagelike scale.
Architectural coherence also plays a role in making a campus beautiful. Take the University of San Diego, which sticks to one architectural style: the Spanish Renaissance, with its elaborate façades, delicate ironwork, and carved wood. Ocean views and palm-tree-lined courtyards are extra selling points.
Yale can’t compete when it comes to location, but it has embraced one architectural movement after another. As Robert A. M. Stern, dean of Yale’s School of Architecture, puts it: “Our campus is a living history of the architecture and urbanism of its three centuries in New Haven.” Whatever your taste, you’ll find a structure to your liking on a campus stroll, perhaps dorms designed by 1960s starchitect Eero Saarinen or James Gamble Rogers’ imposing Gothic bell tower.
But no assessment of America’s campuses would be complete without the University of Virginia. “You might think it looks like all these other campuses, but it’s the first to look like that,” says deShong. He cites founder and architect Thomas Jefferson’s then-novel concept of flanking a lawn with pavilions linked by colonnades and a grand library at its head. New York-based architect Alexander Cooper concurs: “UVA remains the masterpiece of American campus planning.”
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So plan your own trip to check out these campus masterpieces.
Correction, Sept. 30, 2011: Slide 11 of the gallery incorrectly states that the most comprehensive collection of letters, documents, and early printings of the Declaration of Independence is stored at the Harrison Institute at the University of Virginia. In fact, it is stored at the university's Small Special Collections Library.
