ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a guide to understanding the physical plant and architecture of the various kinds of colleges and universities and shows how various groups are stewards and stakeholders who create – and play out – the higher education drama within the architectural setting. One of the hearty perennials of American higher education has been the ritualized, obligatory photographs of groundbreaking ceremonies for new campus buildings. The chapter focuses on the real and symbolic importance of monuments and memorial. Two symbols for the American campus over the past half-century are a construction crane and a bulldozer. How they coexist – sometimes in cooperation, sometimes in conflict – is part of growth and change. The symbolic association brings together dollars and dreams with bricks and mortar and educational visions. Heroic and historic architecture has another lifeline to higher education. A famous building often is the inspiration for the institutional "branding".
