Recognition
Thomas Gaines, in The Campus As a Work of Art, proclaimed the Iowa State campus to be one of the twenty-five most beautiful campuses in the country. Gaines noted Iowa State's park-like expanse of central campus, and the use of trees and shrubbery to draw together ISU's varied building architecture. Over decades, campus buildings, including the Campanile, Beardshear Hall, and Curtiss Hall, circled and preserved the central lawn, creating a space where students study, relax, and socialize.Iowa State's campus contains over 160 buildings. Several buildings, as well as the Marston Water Tower, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The central campus includes 490 acres (2.0 km2) of trees, plants, and classically designed buildings. The landscape's most dominant feature is the 20-acre (81,000 m2) central lawn, which was listed as a "medallion site" by the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1999, one of only three central campuses designated as such. The other two were Harvard University and the University of Virginia.
Campanile
The campanile was constructed during 1897-1898 as a memorial to Margaret MacDonald Stanton, Iowa State's first dean of women, who died on July 25, 1895. The tower is located on ISU's central campus, just north of the Memorial Union. The site was selected by Margaret's husband, Edgar W. Stanton, with the help of then-university president William M. Beardshear. The campanile stands 110 feet (34 m) tall on a 16 by 16 foot (5 by 5 m) base, and cost $6,510.20 to construct.
The campanile is widely seen as one of the major symbols of Iowa State University. It is featured prominently on the university's official ring and the university's mace, and is also the subject of the university's alma mater, The Bells of Iowa State.
Lake LaVerne
Named for Dr. LaVerne W. Noyes, who also donated the funds to see that Alumni Hall could be completed after sitting unfinished and unused from 1905 to 1907. Dr. Noyes is an 1872 alumnus. Lake LaVerne is located west of the Memorial Union and south of Alumni Hall, Carver Hall, and Music Hall. The lake was a gift from Dr. Noyes in 1916.
Lake LaVerne is the home of two mute swans named Sir Lancelot and Elaine, donated to Iowa State by VEISHEA 1935. In 1944, 1970, and 1971 cygnets (baby swans) made their home on Lake LaVerne. Previously Sir Lancelot and Elaine were trumpeter swans but were too aggressive and in 1999 were replaced with two mute swans.
In early spring 2003, Lake LaVerne welcomed its newest and most current mute swan duo. In support of Iowa Department of Natural Resources efforts to re-establish the trumpeter swans in Iowa, university officials avoided bringing breeding pairs of male and female mute swans to Iowa State which means the current Sir Lancelot and Elaine are both female.
Reiman Gardens
Reiman Gardens has since grown to become a 14 acres (57,000 m2) site consisting of a dozen distinct garden areas, an indoor conservatory and an indoor butterfly "wing", butterfly emergence cases, a gift shop, and several supporting greenhouses. Located immediately south of Jack Trice Stadium on the ISU campus, Reiman Gardens is a year-round facility that has become one of the most visited attractions in central Iowa.Iowa State has maintained a horticulture garden since 1914. Reiman Gardens is the third location for these gardens. Today's gardens began in 1993 with a gift from Bobbi and Roy Reiman. Construction began in 1994 and the Gardens' initial 5 acres (20,000 m2) were officially dedicated on September 16, 1995.
The Gardens has received a number of national, state, and local awards since its opening, and its rose gardens are particularly noteworthy. It was honored with the President's Award in 2000 by All American Rose Selections, Inc., which is presented to one public garden in the United States each year for superior rose maintenance and display: “For contributing to the public interest in rose growing through its efforts in maintaining an outstanding public rose garden.”
University Museum
The University Museums consist of the Brunnier Art Museum, Farm House Museum, the Art on Campus Program, the Christian Petersen Art Museum, and the Elizabeth and Byron Anderson Sculpture Garden. The Museums include a multitude of unique exhibits, each promoting the understanding and delight of the visual arts as well as attempt to incorporate a vast interaction between the arts, sciences, and technology.
Brunnier Art Museum
The Brunnier Art Museum, Iowa’s only accredited museum emphasizing a decorative arts collection, is one of the nation's few museums located within a performing arts and conference complex, the Iowa State Center. Founded in 1975, the museum is named after its benefactors, Iowa State alumnus Henry J. Brunnier and his wife Ann. The decorative arts collection they donated, called the Brunnier Collection, is extensive, consisting of ceramics, glass, dolls, ivory, jade, and enameled metals.
Other fine and decorative art objects from the University Art Collection include prints, paintings, sculptures, textiles, carpets, wood objects, lacquered pieces, silver, and furniture. About eight to 12 annual changing exhibitions and permanent collection exhibitions provide educational opportunities for all ages, from learning the history of a quilt hand-stitched over 100 years ago to discovering how scientists analyze the physical properties of artists' materials, such as glass or stone. Lectures, receptions, conferences, university classes, panel discussions, gallery walks, and gallery talks are presented to assist with further interpretation of objects.
Farm House Museum
Many prominent figures have made the Farm House their home throughout its 150 years of use. The first president of the College,Adonijah Welch, briefly stayed at the Farm House and even wrote his inaugural speech in a bedroom on the second floor. James “Tama Jim” Wilson resided for much of the 1890s with his family at the Farm House until he joined President William McKinley’s cabinet as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Agriculture Dean Charles Curtiss and his young family replaced Wilson and became the longest resident of Farm House.Located near the center of the Iowa State campus, the Farm House Museum sits as a monument to early Iowa State history and culture as well as a National Historic Landmark. As the first building on campus, the Farm House was built in 1860 before campus was occupied by students or even classrooms. The college’s first farm tenants primed the land for agricultural experimentation. This early practice lead to Iowa State Agricultural College and Model Farm opening its doors to Iowa students for free in 1869 under the Morrill Act (or Land-grant Act) of 1862.
In 1976, over 110 years after the initial construction, the Farm House became a museum after much time and effort was put into restoring the early beauty of the modest farm home. Today, faculty, students, and community members can enjoy the museum while honoring its significance in shaping a nationally recognized land-grant university. Its collection boasts a large collection of 19th and early 20th century decorative arts, furnishings and material culture reflecting Iowa State and Iowa heritage. Objects include furnishings from Carrie Chapman Catt and Charles Curtiss, a wide variety of quilts, a modest collection of textiles and apparel, and various china and glassware items.
As with many sites on the Iowa State University Campus, The Farm House Museum has a few old myths and legends associated with it. There are rumors of a ghost changing silverware and dinnerware, unexplained rattling furniture, and curtains that have opened seemingly by themselves.
The Farm House Museum is a unique on-campus educational resource providing a changing environment of exhibitions among the historical permanent collection objects that are on display. A walk through the Farm House Museum immerses visitors in the Victorian era (1860-1910) as well as exhibits colorful Iowa and local Ames history.
Art on Campus Collection
Iowa State is home to one of the largest campus public art programs in the United States. Over 2,000 works of public art, including 600 by significant national and international artists, are located across campus in buildings, courtyards, open spaces and offices.
The traditional public art program began during the Depression in the 1930s when Iowa State College’s President Raymond Hughes envisioned that "the arts would enrich and provide substantial intellectual exploration into our college curricula." Hughes invited Grant Wood to create the Library’s agricultural murals that speak to the founding of Iowa and Iowa State College and Model Farm. He also offered Christian Petersen a one-semester sculptor residency to design and build the fountain and bas relief at the Dairy Industry Building. In 1955, 21 years later, Petersen retired having created 12 major sculptures for the campus and hundreds of small studio sculptures.
The Art on Campus Collection is a campus-wide resource of over 2000 public works of art. Programs, receptions, dedications, university classes, Wednesday Walks, and educational tours are presented on a regular basis to enhance visual literacy and aesthetic appreciation of this diverse collection.
Christian Petersen Art Museum
Named for Justin Smith Morrill who created the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, Morrill Hall was completed in 1891. Originally constructed to fill the capacity of a library, museum, and chapel, its original uses are engraved in the exterior stonework on the east side. The building was vacated in 1996 when it was determined unsafe and was also listed in the National Register of Historic Places the same year. In 2005, $9 million was raised to renovate the building and convert it into a museum. Completed and reopened in March 2007, Morrill Hall is home to the Christian Petersen Art Museum.The Christian Petersen Art Museum in Morrill Hall is named for the nation’s first permanent campus artist-in-residence, Christian Petersen, who sculpted and taught at Iowa State from 1934 through 1955, and is considered the founding artist of the Art on Campus Collection.
As part of University Museums, the Christian Petersen Art Museum at Morrill Hall is the home of the Christian Petersen Art Collection, the Art on Campus Program, the University Museums’s Visual Literacy and Learning Program, and Contemporary Changing Art Exhibitions Program.
Located within the Christian Petersen Art Museum are the Lyle and Nancy Campbell Art Gallery, the Roy and Bobbi Reiman Public Art Studio Gallery, the Margaret Davidson Center for the Study of the Art on Campus Collection, the Edith D. and Torsten E. Lagerstrom Loaned Collections Center, and the Neva M. Petersen Visual Learning Gallery. University Museums shares the James R. and Barbara R. Palmer Small Objects Classroom in Morrill Hall.
Anderson Sculpture Garden
The Elizabeth and Byron Anderson Sculpture Garden is located by the Christian Petersen Art Museum at historic Morrill Hall. The sculpture garden design incorporates sculptures, a gathering arena, and sidewalks and pathways. Planted with perennials, ground cover, shrubs, and flowering trees, the landscape design provides a distinctive setting for important works of 20th and 21st century sculpture, primarily American. Ranging from forty-four inches to nearly nine feet high and from bronze to other metals, these works of art represent the richly diverse character of modern and contemporary sculpture.
The sculpture garden is adjacent to Iowa State’s 22 acres (89,000 m2) central campus. Adonijah Welch, ISU’s first president, envisioned a picturesque campus with a winding road encircling the college’s majestic buildings, vast lawns of green grass, many varieties of trees sprinkled throughout to provide shade, and shrubbery and flowers for fragrance. Today, the central lawn continues to be an iconic place for all Iowa Staters, and enjoys national acclaim as one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. The new Elizabeth and Byron Anderson Sculpture Garden further enhances the beauty of Iowa State.
