Grant Wood and Christian Petersen
I’m in my meeting at Iowa State right now, and over lunch, we took a trip to Parks Library where I saw some cool Grant Wood murals. I must have seen them before–I used to do research at Parks sometimes for high school projects, but I don’t remember looking at them carefully. They were really impressive. Grant Wood is so rad. The only downside was that this guy came up and interrupted my appreciation because he wanted to talk about how big my database is. I think he was going to gloat about his being bigger, but it turned out they were about the same size (half a terabyte, if you must know).
This building our meeting is in, Morrill Hall, also has a nice little Christian Petersen exhibit area. He did a lot of sculptures around town, so I was already familiar with his work, but it was cool to see so many in one place. The exhibit area also had bamboo floors, which I enjoyed on Denny’s behalf.
Iowa State has a lot of pretty buildings. It really is a nice campus, too. I like all the green spaces. I couldn’t have imagined it back when I was considering colleges, but with a little mental distance, I can see how it would be a pleasant place to go to school.
I miss the ISU campus. The UNI campus just never seems to have the majesty that ISU’s green space and neo-classical architecture project. Iowa’s campus has always felt a little too urban for my tastes too. Did you know that ISU’s central campus was laid out by the same guy who planned Central Park in NYC?
The landscape architecture was done by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed the gardens at the Biltmore mansion in Asheville, North Carolina.
The single thing I miss MOST about Iowa State (well perhaps other than Welch Avenue) is the landscape and all the beautiful architecture… except for the Towers, which were an ugly eyesore. I’m glad they got demolished.
two of the towers and the knapp-storms commons are still there. and they’re still ugly.