Best Campus?

CalX · May 4, 2006, 3:12pm

I will put Berkeley up against any other American campus mentioned here.

What are the attributes of a beautiful campus?

-Architecture of the buildings
-beauty of the landscaping
-beauty and diversity of the flora
-beauty of surrounding area
-beauty of the site
-intimacy (the poster from Yale elluded to that aspect)
-vibrancy/liveliness

Cal is tops across the board.

View from the rim of the football stadium
<a href="http://www.posicorp.com/pictures/2004-11-20%20UC%20Berkeley%20-%20The%20Big%20Game/IMG_0001.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.posicorp.com/pictures/2004-11-20%20UC%20Berkeley%20-%20The%20Big%20Game/IMG_0001.jpg</a>
Campanile from stadium
<a href="http://www.posicorp.com/pictures/2004-11-20%20UC%20Berkeley%20-%20The%20Big%20Game/IMG_0002.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.posicorp.com/pictures/2004-11-20%20UC%20Berkeley%20-%20The%20Big%20Game/IMG_0002.jpg</a>

Senior Hall log cabin
<a href="http://www.berkeleyheritage.com/berkeley_landmarks/images/UC_campus/Senior_Hall.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.berkeleyheritage.com/berkeley_landmarks/images/UC_campus/Senior_Hall.jpg</a>

TourGuide446 · May 4, 2006, 3:34pm

And on a clear day you can see San Quentin.

CalX · May 4, 2006, 5:42pm

And Alcatraz too.

<a href="http://sternerson.com/2004/40_mile_sailing/dsc03063_edit.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://sternerson.com/2004/40_mile_sailing/dsc03063_edit.jpg</a>

parent2010 · May 5, 2006, 3:22pm

You have not seen anything until you have seen the University of San Diego.
It is on a mesa ovelooking Mission Bay and most of the campus is Spanish Renaissance. With glorious weather and five minutes to the beach. It cannot be beat.

Observer28 · May 5, 2006, 3:58pm

Ditto on USD...pretty cool place.

momoftwins · May 5, 2006, 5:00pm

I've been to 100+ campuses. West Point is amazingly beautiful. It oozes history. There is a spot overlooking the Hudson River which is called the $1,000,000 view. And although it is totally different, Stanford is fabulous.

cameliasinensis · May 5, 2006, 5:18pm

My favorite campuses were Middlebury, Dartmouth, and Swarthmore.

Micky7774u · May 6, 2006, 12:04pm

Of Course the University of Virginia!!!!!...which has been Ranked one of the most beautiful sites in the nation. WAHOOOOWAAA!!!

126230 · May 9, 2006, 2:28am

UCLA

<a href="http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/bruincam/wallpaper.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/bruincam/wallpaper.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/bruincam/default.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/bruincam/default.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/bruincam/bruincam_favorites.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/bruincam/bruincam_favorites.htm</a>

Strykur · May 9, 2006, 2:31am

No way, the absolute best campus is Pepperdine. Anyone else who says otherwise is LYING!

<a href="http://bschool.pepperdine.edu/images/newevents/presskit/Pepperdine_University.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://bschool.pepperdine.edu/images/newevents/presskit/Pepperdine_University.jpg</a>

TourGuide446 · May 9, 2006, 3:17am

Getting back to Calx's post #41 (amazing that he was able to type that much in the allotted time using only his left hand), I love his dedication to his university, but I have to challenge 2 of his criteria: beauty of the surrounding area and vibrancy/liveliness.

SURROUNDING AREA: The colleges don't have much control over the surrounding area, so it would seem unfair to hold it against them if the surrounding area is a mess; the view FROM the campus certainly impacts the overall aesthetic experience, but would seem to be more appropriate to consider for a whole 'nother thread (i.e., "Best View")...also, the view from Alcatraz is amazing too, but that doesn't enhance its own beauty; and it's a little like saying Ashley Simpson is beautiful because when you're around her you get to ogle Jessica.

VIBRANCY/LIVELINESS: I don't see what this has to do with the "beauty" of the campus. It would have a lot of impact if the topic were the most "exciting" campus, but not beauty; NYU is probably a vibrant place, but not even slightly beautiful; (by the way, Michigan might be top 10 in vibrancy/liveliness...the place just pulsates intellectual passion).

And maybe there should be a rule that you can't nominate your own college in this thread, to preserve objectivity. The way it's going is sort of like 5 grandparents discussing whose grandchild is prettiest.

CalX · May 9, 2006, 3:28pm

Pepperdine looks like a 1970s Hewlett Packard office complex by the ocean. Really nice site, but the architecture is terribly dated and not campus-like.

Tourguide: you're wrong, I'm actually left-handed. ;)

You're also wrong about the environment and site not being an integral part of the campus. No one would have mentioned Pepperdine if it weren't by the ocean. The Cal campus was actually designed around the views and with the site in mind (by the greatest American architects of the time actually, Olmstead, Howard, Maybeck and Julia Morgan; it's not quite Alcatraz, actually...), so you cannot take the site and the views out of the campus. Most students in the dorms have access to gorgeous views, either from their dorm windows or their dorm decks. Some libraries have nice bay views too (including the most popular, Moffit.) The right analogy here is going out with Ashley Simpson and having a threesome with her sister. The quality and beauty of the site is a big part of the reason why cities like SF, Sydney, Rio, Vancouver or Hong Kong are considered among the most beautiful in the world.

Let's take a look at the other side of the scale, a campus in an environment that's not particularly attractive:
<a href="http://www.conquesthousing.com/website/images/tuscany/areial_shot_and_USC_campus.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.conquesthousing.com/website/images/tuscany/areial_shot_and_USC_campus.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.oip.lsu.edu/apa/_images/NSE_pics/postcards/USC.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.oip.lsu.edu/apa/_images/NSE_pics/postcards/USC.jpg</a>

Vibrancy/liveliness is important, the analogy here is how good a personality a beautiful woman has. The beauty of the experience itself is connected with the physical beauty of the site. How nice are the lawns if they are ghost towns on a Sunday afternoon? That's a bit of a knock on schools like Rice or Stanford, which have nice, very spacious campuses but which aren't very lively.

And we're talking about the vibrancy of the campus at least as much of that of the immediate surroundings, so NYU is pretty bad in that department since "there is no there there". You're right about Michigan. That's not a make-or-brake dimension, but IMHO it's definitely a factor in the big picture, an important part of what makes a campus great.

On the objectivity part: of course there is a personal bias, but part of it is the fact that as an alumnus/ae, you really have an opportunity to know the physical features of a campus inside out. A campus like Berkeley is full of hidden gems that a visitor might have overlooked. If the analogy here is grandparents praising the merits of their progeny based on pictures and rational statements (as I did), then it's a useful conversation.

semiserious · May 9, 2006, 4:40pm

The answer is clearly UVA. It's beauty is one of the reasons I choose it. The architecture is gorgeous Georgian and it all matches, which made me SO happy. There are a ton of beautiful, wide-open green spaces with trees and flowers and wooden benches. Everything is old-timey and beautiful--I imagine it still looks much the way it did when Thomas Jefferson designed it. Even Stanford's dean of their school or achitecture hailed UVA as "as close to architectural perfection as possible".

University of Richmond was GORGEOUS too.

IMO, Berkeley is the most hideous I have visited yet. Everything is dirty, nothing matches, not a whole lot of greenery. The surrounding city is nice, though. I compare the buildings to a box of chocolates: most of the individual chocolates are nice, but they certainly don't form any sort of beauty when you just cram them all together at different angles in the box.

CalX · May 9, 2006, 6:35pm

Your take on the Cal campus reminds me of some friends who used to visit in San Francisco and think of some neighborhoods there as "filthy". They're used to bland but impeccably manicured east coast suburbs as their reference point and paradigm of urban beauty. If you're looking for Virginia-like qualities (a large, spacious flat rectangular mall delimited with rows of buildings), you're not going to find much in Berkeley. Personally, as a Parisian, I find a tremendous deal of beauty and charm in the Berkeley campus.

John Galen Howard favored the current campus layout based on the site, instead of putting a big campus quad like most other schools do, he put the buildings closer together and maintained pedestrian lanes and lines of sight into the Bay and up to the hills. That worked marvelously well IMHO.

as well, I think you're also too quick to dismiss the laconic pastoral charm of the Cal campus for failure of seeing those features in your campus (which granted, did set a standard.) Not only is the site spectacular, but it also has several unique features: a nice stream which runs through campus and is a green corridor of redwoods. That greenery is thick year round.
<a href="http://static.flickr.com/50/135712948_8821337744_b.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://static.flickr.com/50/135712948_8821337744_b.jpg</a>
<a href="http://static.flickr.com/47/135712950_6005d9edc5_b.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://static.flickr.com/47/135712950_6005d9edc5_b.jpg</a>

Second, a tremendous diversity in its flora. There is a whole course in the school of forestry about the trees on campus, two hundred species planted over a century ago which include tropical varieties like eucalyptus, palm trees up to alpine cedars trees that grow in the mountains of Lebanon or Tibet. The mild year round weather allows for that tremendous variety.
<a href="http://landscape.ced.berkeley.edu/%7Etreefund/campustrees/treecamp.htm%5B/url%5D">http://landscape.ced.berkeley.edu/~treefund/campustrees/treecamp.htm</a>

As well, the hills and canyon on the east are part of campus (right behind many dorms and the football stadium.) They are one of the most beautiful large parcels of greenery on any campus in the States, spectacular diversity with sweeping bay views, including the Botanical Garden, one of the largest collection of plant types in the US.

hairypotty · May 9, 2006, 7:25pm

Princeton, Duke, Yale, Cornell, UVA, and William & Mary

Allorion · May 9, 2006, 7:42pm

Semiserious, I can see where some people might not like certain styles of buildings, but I'm not sure how Berkeley doesn't have greenery... Patches of forest are everywhere around campus, most of it is basically very well kept lawn, and there's a stream going through most of it.

I suppose if someone doesn't like the feel that they're in a forest on campus they wouldn't like it, but I still don't get how you miss the greenery.

If there's something Berkeley doesn't lack, it's definitely greenery.

CalX · May 9, 2006, 10:33pm

Especially considering that for much of the schoolyear, there is no greenery at all on eastern campuses except for the occasional evergreen...

<a href="http://www.michaeldennis.com/pages/3rd%20level/projects/view/view%20cd1.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.michaeldennis.com/pages/3rd%20level/projects/view/view%20cd1.html</a>

Murasaki · May 9, 2006, 10:37pm

I think Cornell and UVA are both beautiful.

TourGuide446 · May 9, 2006, 10:39pm

CalX, I commend you for your enthusiasm and thoughful defense of Cal's beauty. You are so brutal on USC; are there others here who think USC deserves such abuse?

Allorion · May 9, 2006, 11:25pm

I personally rather like USC, though that was partially because of their recruiting attempt on me during sophomore year for their resident honors program.

The people there were friendly, enthusiastic about the school, and I thought the school itself looked rather nice and certainly a place one could spend four years (that was in big part as breath of fresh air from too many summer programs in Stanford though).

Only thing about it, if you are talking about abuse on USC in general, is that its academics are rising but not yet on par with the top UC's and other similar institutions. There are choices that you can make that are academically far worse than USC, and at least USC can be mentioned when discussing academics as such when before it was merely considered a preppy school for rich LA residents and dismissed for its academics--so I suppose it's going in the right direction in that way.

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