From College to Campus: The Architecture of Education from Medieval Europe to Jefferson

The rise of university colleges, like that in Paris and Oxford, and their territorial spread in scholastic Europe from the 13th century, the investment of patrons in building the so-called sapienza, and the hegemony of the Jesuit’s educational project, are key passages in the history of education in western civilization. For centuries the collegium was associated with the form of the courtyard within the city. From the 19th century, the invention of the ‘American campus’, as a result of the liberal reforms of Thomas Jefferson as architect and educator, brought to the gradual disappearance of the college. Focusing on these paradigmatic moments, this essay discusses about the typological evolution of the college from the medieval courtyard to the modern campus of the nineteenth century. By describing and analyzing specific case studies and their historical context, in the selected examples, spaces like courtyards, halls, corridors, and rooms, besides defining abstract keywords of possible structural relationships in the definition of formal typologies, were the main elements that shaped the organization of education and helped in achieving the welfare of students.