Campus og studiemiljø - Bygningsstyrelsen

in terms of issues addressed and in terms
of how knowledge is applied. Therefore,
in this perspective the university is also
dependent on being an open meeting place
for different currents of thought – well integrated
in the city.
In the postscript to the book ‘The University
and the City’, 1988, editor Thomas
Bender writes about the differences and
similarities between universities and the
city. The city, he believes, is an “open heterogeneity”.
The heterogeneity refers to the
multiplicity and the inner contradictions
inherent in any complex institution. The
university is a “semi-cloistered heterogeneity”.
The semi-cloisteredness represents a
delicate balance between the university’s
inner world (the cloister-like closedness)
and participation in the exterior context.
The interface between the university and
its surroundings becomes an important
spatial aspect.
two traditions
Two traditions run through 800 years of
university building history: The internalist
tradition encompasses the college, the
American campus and what might be
termed the external university. The externalist
tradition includes universitas, the
institutional university and the city campus.
These traditions are very much alive, both
because of buildings that are still in use and
because of points of view that are passed on
in new buildings. I will alternately describe
the internalist and the externalist tradition
through a series of examples.
the college
The college was established as a foundation
by means of donated funds during the
Middle Ages. It had statutes that governed
the life of teachers and students. Collegio
di Spagna in Bologna dating back to 1367 is
often considered the first specialised university
building in Europe. It is clearly modelled
on the monastery. A closed wall surrounds
a square two-storey building around an inner
courtyard. Here, teachers and students
sleep, eat and study in a world of its own. At
one end of the courtyard there is a church,
exactly as the church by the cloister.
The tradition lives on in English colleges.
At Oxford, college areas are spread all
over the city with houses and classrooms
around large quadrangles, often with a
church at one side. Cambridge is more
divided into a row with the college on one
side and the city on the other – the contrast
known as ‘town and gown’.
“ de tidligste universiteter var ikke fysisk forankrede
institutioner, de kunne faktisk flytte sig fra by til by med
deres lille bogsamling. de havde ingen specialbyggede
lokaler, men lejede sig ind i byens almindelige huse / early
universities were not physically anchored institutions, they
could actually move from one city to another with their small
collection of books. they did not have any purpose-built
rooms, but rented space in ordinary houses in the town
universitas
Universitas means ‘guild’, in this case the
guild of university teachers. Early universities
were not physically anchored institutions,
they could actually move from one
city to another with their small collection of
books. They did not have any purpose-built
rooms, but rented space in ordinary houses
in the town. Albeit preferably in one particular
part of the city, just as other guilds belonged
to their particular streets. The university’s
street might be called ‘School Street’,
‘Book Street’ or something similar. In central
Copenhagen, it was called ‘Studiestræde’
tre perspektiver: Historisk / tHree perspeCtives: HistoriCal
– Study Alley. For large gatherings and formal
occasions, the local church was used.
One important aspect of universitas was that
students, just as the teachers, formed their
own ‘guilds’, or fraternities, and that they
were clearly independent of and partly separate
from the college.
the campus university
The campus university is originally an American
tradition. The earliest reference to the
concept is found in a letter from 1774 about
the Princeton university area. The tradition
of American universities was brought over by
the first English colonialists and had its origin
in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. In
America, there were no towns in the Middle
Ages. Furthermore, the universities were often
established at ‘the frontier’, as their primary
task was to educate priests. It was considered
particularly important to carry out missionary
work amongst the Indians. There was
no basis for encircled courtyards here. The
square became a ‘yard’ or a ‘ground’. Following
independence, the campus concept spread
and ended up denoting not just the lawn in
front of the main building, but the entire university
area. Part of the college tradition lived
on in the idea that the university should take
responsibility for the student’s entire life,
even including accommodation and spare
time, e.g. sports. The university stood ‘in loco
parentis’ i.e. in the parents’ place.
the institutional university
The institutional university on the European
continent belonged more to the universitas
traditition. As the university grew and had
more purpose-built buildings – first anatomy
theatres and astronomy observatories and
then, from the 19 th century on, an increasing
number of specialised scientific institutions
– it was no longer possible to keep the university
area in one place. It became necessary
to use plots of land that could be acquired
around the city, which resulted in a more or
less spread-out localisation, well-integrated
in the city. In the course of the 19 th century,
new main buildings for academic ceremonies
were constructed in many places. They
also became a means of asserting the place of
traditional humanities subjects at the university.
And the seminar room became humanities’
answer to the laboratory of science.
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