Danforth Campus

Washington University in St. Louis
Danforth Campus
Style Collegiate gothic
Erected 1902
Location St. Louis, Missouri
38°38′14″N 90°15′48″W / 38.63722°N 90.26333°W / 38.63722; -90.26333
Namesake Danforth Foundation, Dr. William H. Danforth
Architects Cope & Stewardson; Frederick Law Olmsted; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Fumihiko Maki
Website http://www.wustl.edu

The Danforth Campus is the main campus at Washington University in St. Louis. Formerly known as the Hilltop Campus, it was officially dedicated as the Danforth Campus on September 17, 2006, in honor of William H. Danforth, the 13th Chancellor of the University, the Danforth family and the Danforth Foundation. Distinguished by its collegiate gothic architecture, the 169-acre (0.68 km2) campus lies at the western boundary of Forest Park, partially in the City of St. Louis. Most of the campus (including almost all academic and administrative buildings) is in a small enclave of unincorporated St. Louis County, while all the campus area south of Forsyth Boulevard (mostly student housing) is in suburban Clayton.[1] Immediately to the north across Forest Park Parkway is University City.[2]

History

Washington University was the site of the Games of the III Olympiad

The construction of Danforth Campus was accelerated through a profitable lease of several buildings to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. During the fair, Brookings Hall, Busch Hall, Cupples I & II Halls, Francis Field & Gymnasium (site of the 1904 Summer Olympics), Ridgley Hall, Eads Hall, and Prince Hall (a men's dormitory) were used as administrative and exhibition spaces. At the fair's conclusion, the newly constructed buildings assumed their original functions as classrooms and administrative offices. Additionally, Francis Field and Gymnasium were converted for use by the Washington University athletic department.[3]

Postcard commemorating the 1904 World's Fair

The landscape design of the Danforth Campus was created in 1895 by Olmsted, Olmsted, & Eliot, a firm best known for designing New York City's Central Park. In 1899, after holding a national design competition, Washington University's administrators selected the Philadelphia firm Cope & Stewardson to design the entire campus.[4] Cope & Stewardson, a firm known for its mastery of Collegiate Gothic, designed Brookings Hall as a centerpiece of a new campus plan. The plan, modeled after the distinctive quadrangles of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, has guided the construction and expansion of the Danforth Campus to the present day.[5]

A large portion of the Danforth Campus is recognized as the Washington University Historic District, which achieved National Historic Landmark status in 1987.

Campus buildings

Most of the buildings built between 1902 and the 1950s were designed by Cope & Stewardson and Jamieson and Spearl.

Arts and sciences

Brookings Hall, frequently an icon for the university, houses administrative offices
Ridgley Hall
Psychology Building

Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts

Olin Business School

The Knight Center.

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

School of Law

George Warren Brown School of Social Work

Student centers

Danforth University Center
Graham Chapel

Athletic facilities

Francis Field

East Forsyth buildings

Blewett Hall

Current construction

Campus art and sculpture

The Barry Flanagan bronze statue, "Thinker on a Rock," widely known, simply, as "The Bunny," is currently on permanent loan to Washington University and features prominently near Olin Library, Graham Chapel and Mallinckrodt (Edison Theater).

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum on campus houses most of the University's art and sculpture collections, including pieces by Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jenny Holzer, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Willem de Kooning, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, and Rembrandt van Rijn, among others.

References and notes

Image gallery

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 31, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.