Art on university campuses
Written May 19 2025
One thing I really like about university campuses is how much public art there is. There are artworks hanging in just about every hallway, everything from geometric drawings and graphics generated from data, like visualisations of the Mandelbrot set, in the mathematics building to reinterpretations of classic paintings in the humanities wing. There are large murals in front of the lecture halls and poems glued to the tables in the study areas and huge metal sculptures outside.
It’s just wonderful to be in a space that is not just purely functional but actually colorful and pleasant to be in. I know that this air of co-creation of the public space by the people using it is mostly a façade; in the end it is the university administrators that have to approve these artworks and they would never approve anything even remotely radical or challenging. Still, I like it. In Germany, authorities have to set aside a certain percentage of their building budgets for public building projects, which is then used to place public artworks there, which is nice, but frankly too little. I just wish all public spaces could be as friendly and engaging as this.