<p>Is it just me, or do most people prefer the look of classical architecture (Greek) to that of Gothic-like architecure when it comes to college choices?</p>
<p>IMO most of the Ivy league has architecture which seems to old school. I prefer places like Columbia and MIT where there are classical styles. Classically styled architecture looks more epic and beautiful in my opinion. Just look at Rome, Greece, Washington D.C, etc. I don't know what other CC posters think about how much architecture affects the college environment, but for me, I could never attend a school which looks so "old". I am not hating on the greatest or academics of any of these schools, just the architecture. I don't know if anyone here gets a similar feeling or not, but let me know.</p>
<p>Many of the Ivy League campuses have a mix of styles. You can certainly find classical buildings on the campuses of Princeton and Yale (the two I'm most familiar with), along with Gothic revival, Georgian, modern, and post-modern. (And classical comes before Gothic, so perhaps you mean schools which look so new? ;))</p>
<p>Dartmouth, Brown and Harvard (as well as some LAC's like Williams) also have a fair showing of New England type buildings. Not grand, but cozy and welcoming.</p>
<p>I also love Columbia (and Barnard) and with D attending, we have gotten to see it quite a bit.</p>
<p>The thing I don't understand is when a college has a nice traditional theme going (Gothic, Georgian, or Classical), and then somebody evidently decides it looks too stodgy and they put some hideous contemporary glass and steel monstrosity right in the middle of it. What's wrong with these people? It's like if some orchestra conductor decided he wanted to be "edgy" and "hip" and decided to replace the second movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony with a rapping "Baby Got Back." What part of "it just doesn't fit" do these people not understand? Do they think architecture is like physics, that the new necessarily replaces the old?</p>
<p>On the other hand, they did tear down the awful brutalist Butler College quad (or as it was known in my day, the 'New New Quad') and will hopefully put something much better there. And the new Whitman College is in keeping with most of the lovely architecture of the campus.</p>
<p>I can understand this. Colleges what to support good architecture. Putting up imitations of older styles does not really qualify as good architecture, but rather pastiche. It's a difficult problem, especially because contemporary architecture with larger windows and larger open spaces is more user friendly for contemporary people.</p>
<p>I think there is a middle way between over-the-top self-consciously modern deconstructivist nonsense like the Gehry building and insipid copies of traditional styles...I think Bloomberg serves as an example of this potentially handsome middle way.</p>
<p>My own beloved Penn is riddled with brutalist eyesores. Unfortunately, we don't have the budget to get rid of them...</p>
<p>Swarthmore College is the only college that I have visited where the entire campus had a distinctive architectural style. New buildings (c. 2000s) were obviously new and had more edgy architectural styles, but they fit beautifully with the older buildings. All the buildings were gray stone and of similar taste. Coupled with the abundant trees and gorgeous landscaping, the effect was beautiful. </p>
<p>As for classic over gothic, I must say I prefer gothic. I am in love with Chicago's campus! Except Max P. that building is as ugly as sin. I don't care if Jesus Christ and the entire Cooper Union collaborated on it, it looks like it was made of of legos. Its totally out of place. Oddly, I do like the Reg with its brutalist architecture. For some reason I feel it fits with the campus over all. Maybe its because it isn't in prosaic colors.</p>
<p>"Putting up imitations of older styles does not really qualify as good architecture, but rather pastiche. It's a difficult problem, especially because contemporary architecture with larger windows and larger open spaces is more user friendly for contemporary people."</p>
<p>Call it what you want, I don't think any college should feel obligated erect a modernistic glass-and-steel eyesore just because that is what the most-recent architecture-school grads are shilling.</p>