State U. of New York’s Campus Is Modernist From End to Distant End

Edward Durell Stone’s campus for the State U. of New York at Albany is Modernism at its most monumental.

Fans of Modernist architecture can’t help but be wowed by the expansive campus that Edward Durell Stone designed for the State University of New York at Albany in the early 1960s. Stone chose a vaguely Islamic, vaguely Mediterranean style that features sleek columns, elegant arches, and vistas that never seem to end — in part because the main block of academic buildings is more than five football fields long.

But those without a taste for Modernism may find the campus’s vast spaces bleak, especially because money for maintaining all that concrete is hard to come by. Make up your own mind — take a narrated Chronicle tour of the campus in less than four minutes (and without putting on sunblock or comfortable shoes).

Stone’s columns rise to form pointed arches that create beautiful patterns of light and shadow.

The campus’s signature element is a huge fountain set in a sunken terrace surrounded by academic buildings. The tall cylinder is both a carillon and a water tower that supplies the campus’s 22-story dormitory high-rises.

The campus’s four residential complexes feature stark towers set in courtyards formed by three-story buildings. (Chronicle photographs by Lawrence Biemiller)