Abstract
The university campus in the United States is a unique architectural and landscape architecture typology. Nothing like it existed until Harvard University was established in 1638. Invented during in the 17th century by the American colonists and later developed during the American Industrial Revolution, the American campus is a community devoted to teaching and generating knowledge. It can be urban, suburban, and/or rural in form and its planning directly correlates with a university’s research mission and the pedagogy of the American university system. Its buildings and landscapes are embedded with iconography, which the founding builders used to convey their values to future generations. This paper presents the history of how this designed work first emerged in American society and then evolved in ways that responded to changes that occurred in America. At the end of the 20th century, universities conserved parts of them as cultural heritage monuments. Originally, the university campus was built to disseminate a classical education, but later, the campus was built for technical and agricultural education. By the beginning of the 20th century, professional education and sport changed its architecture and landscape. The paper briefly discusses that while it has inspired how universities are built to teach and generate knowledge throughout the world. It concludes by reaffirming its value to cultural heritage and that it should be conserved.
Highlights
The American Campus in Colonial AmericaThere are only two building typologies the United States has ever produced—the skyscraper and the university campus
The campuses of land-grant universities were different than the campus designs of the original institutions of higher education that had been founded in the US before the American Civil War
Throughout the early 20th century and up until today, the architecture and planning of the American university has profoundly influenced the architecture of higher education at universities throughout the world
Summary
There are only two building typologies the United States has ever produced—the skyscraper and the university campus. The primary reason why the campus came into existence in this way in early America was to separate the impressionable young students, who were all male, from the profane and vulgar business of the city In this place, the university taught them a liberal arts education, in the Roman ideal, for the career objective of being either religious or civic leaders. Set by the Royal colonial governments and, later, early Republic governments, the first colleges originally consisted of a single multipurpose building, which accommodated all the tutorial rooms, the library, the chapel, and later housing for all the students This presented numerous challenges to the well-being of the early American universities. One building campuses soon evolved into multi-building ones and a new urban space emerged—the college green, quadrangle, or square
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