I’ve been reading the companion thread, “What is the Ugliest Campus Building…” and while that was great fun, I have to sympathize with college planners who have had to expand during the modern era. I mean, what do you do - design one more knock-off of Independence Hall, or do you venture into the world of glass and steel (and yes, concrete?) Of particular concern are colleges and universities that boast any degree of ivy on their walls. Are there any examples of modern additions that more or less harmonize with there surroundings? I’ll nominate Swarthmore’s Alice Paul residence hall - no mistaking its modernity and yet it doesn’t seem completely out of place along the Main Walk. Columbia’s student union is another; it shows what a little glass and steel can do to perk up an otherwise staid urban campus. Any others?
Bill & Melinda Gates Hall at Cornell.
I like the Shanahan at Harvey Mudd.
Modernist, yes. Brutalist, no.
I loved the new science center at Beloit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN6mEJB4PGo
The new visitor’s center at Northwestern is all about taking advantage of the view. Walls of glass are gorgeous in all seasons:
https://www.northwestern.edu/campus-life/visiting-campus/segal-visitors.html
I liked the Carpenter Center at Harvard (Le Corbusier’s only building in the US). It was a little weird, but fun to be in.
I think the library James Stirling did in Cambridge is pretty cool. https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/building
I liked Hilles Library at Radcliffe.
I actually love Brutalist architecture, but I will admit that it is an acquired taste and that I wanted to be an architect when I was a young pupper.
Swarthmore also added two new dorms near the baseball field that I like. They had to move the left field fence in so the buildings would fit, but they made the left field wall very tall wall and added a student viewing section on top of it that is accessible from the dorm. There is also a dorm lobby built into the left field wall where you can watch the game while you study through glass windows build into the wall (search on Clothier Baseball Facility and you can get a video tour from the coach).
The building style and color ties into the traditional stone building behind the center field wall. I was dubious they would pull it off because Swarthmore has it’s share of modern abominations, but the way they added these two new dorms is top notch.
The Richard B. Fisher Music Hall at Bard. A little Gehry whimsy goes a long way. 
The Singh Center for Nanotechnology at Penn is pretty cool. The nearby Hill House dorm is Brutalist and still ugly IMO outside but it’s really lovely inside now.
I like the Natural Science lab building at UTD love the purple and green scales!
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1600&bih=677&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=5AB7W8_sOY6GsAX0jpyoBA&q=utd+building+natural+sciences&oq=utd+building+natural+sciences&gs_l=img.3…4122.10283.0.11463.21.21.0.0.0.0.81.1391.21.21.0…0…1c.1.64.img…0.5.352…35i39k1j0i8i30k1j0i30k1j0i24k1.0.kpZv-JpqEqU
Ha Ha, I saw the title of this thread and my first thought was the Alice Paul dorm at Swarthmore, along with its companion David Kemp (AP was my son’s freshman dorm, lucky kid!) Swat has done reasonably well in RECENT years; won’t comment on some earlier ones.
Actually, no.
I find the mixing of modernist buildings with traditional ones on college campuses jarring.
If the campus is all-modern, that would be a different story.
Armstrong Building at Purdue is very cool. Also love the music building on Northwestern’s campus.
I prefer buildings to be “of their time.” Yale did a decent job, as far as I can tell, with their new residential colleges to make them look old. But they have $$$$$$. Usually when new buildings are made to look old, they just look like a strip mall shopping center, which will look dated 10 years later. You know, faux stucco or brick that fools no one.
I haven’t seen many (any?) comments about the unique design of the Geisel Library at UCSD. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it (as compared the brutalist architecture of much of Muir College which I abhor), but the library is iconic in its design.
“I prefer buildings to be “of their time.” Yale did a decent job, as far as I can tell, with their new residential colleges to make them look old.”
I like fake-old collegiate Gothic or neo-Georgian when they are done well. The original Yale colleges were fake-old when they were built in the 1930s, and they’ve stood the test of time well. I guess they might still be beloved today if they had been built in “of their time” Art Deco. But “out of their time” has been a smash hit for 80+ years now.
The new Murray and Franklin colleges are gorgeous.
^I would definitely put Geisel Library in the brutalist canon, but not one with which I’m well acquainted. The use of concrete to make it appear lighter and standing on its head is frankly unusual.
I like the Beckman Building at Caltech which got the scale of the old buildings better even though it’s much bigger. The labs my husband worked in were ugly, right colors, red tile roof, but they looked like stretched out Monopoly buildings at best.
A building I liked very much was the Usdan Student Center at Brandeis. https://www.brandeis.edu/studentlife/activities/student-centers/index.html
There’s also a pretty nice dorm building at U of Chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_at_the_University_of_Chicago#/media/File:Renee_Granville-Grossman_Residential_Commons.jpg
I love Chicago’s Cathedral gothic, but I don’t think every building needs to be done in that style.
I liked the Darla Moore College of Business at UofSC and Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute building. Both buildings happen to be outside of the traditional campus setting, so they don’t clash with the older structures. ett
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House is open for tours at the edge of University of Chicago (lots of restoration underway). I don’t know if you would consider this a campus building, but it’s an excellent example of early modern architecture.
Florida Polytechnic University’s Innovation Science & Technology Building is pretty striking, as are some of the Florida International University buildings. Both are relatively new campuses however where modern architecture has been the norm rather than the exception.
I love the Ross School of Business at U Mich. Very nice ode to the best Midwest architecture.