page_title: History of college campuses and architecture in the United States
section_title: Contemporary architecture
hierarchical_section_title: History of college campuses and architecture in the United States / Contemporary architecture
caption_attribution_description: Picture of Princeton University's Whitman College. Designed by architect Demetri Porphyrios, built in 2002.
context_page_description: The history of college campuses in the United States begins in 1636 with the founding of Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then known as New Towne. Early colonial colleges, which included not only Harvard, but also College of William & Mary, Yale University and The College of New Jersey, were modeled after equivalent English and Scottish institutions, but American establishments gradually split with their forebears, both physically and academically.
  The earliest American colleges and universities were all affiliated with different Christian denominations; Brown, for example, was founded by Baptists, while the Columbia University was founded by the Church of England. These religious affiliations colored the architectural texture and geographical placement of early colleges, with emphasis placed on the construction of religious facilities, and a desire for colleges to be rural, so as to avoid the vices anecdotally associated with large towns and cities.
  As colleges developed and increased in number, many strayed from their religious affiliations, or were founded without one.
context_section_description: Contemporary construction on college campuses is diverse, with construction mirroring and diverging from earlier styles and trends. Examples of deliberately referential or contextual architecture include Whitman College, at Princeton. Designed by Demetri Porphyrios, the college was built to resemble earlier construction on the campus in the Collegiate Gothic style, examples of which include Mathey and Rockefeller Colleges. This construction is at odds with other recently added buildings, such as the Lewis Science Library, by architect Frank Gehry, which is Deconstructivist in its design, and neighboring Butler College, partially drafted by postmodern architect Robert Venturi.
  Some institutions, such as Rhodes College and Franklin and Marshall, have resisted change, preferring to construct in the same styles originally employed on their campuses. This has led to continuous Collegiate Gothic construction at Rhodes. At Franklin and Marshall, this has meant Georgian and Colonial revival buildings in the style of Charles Klauder designed by architects such as Robert A. M. Stern and the firm of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott. These decisions have sometimes been controversial. Princeton and Yale have respectively received criticism due to the expense, perceived difficulty of use by students, and apparently reactionary motivations associated with construction of new residential colleges in traditional styles on their campuses.
  Other schools, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cincinnati have embraced experimental or contemporary architecture. The MIT campus features work from Modernists such as Eero Saarinen and I.M. Pei, as well as contemporary buildings by architects such as Steven Holl. Similarly, Cincinnati's campus features the work of many Modernists, and contemporary architects, such as Frank Gehry, Machado and Silvetti, and Michael Graves, an iconic postmodern architect.
caption: Whitman College at Princeton University
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