Your summer WonkHE university architecture quiz
Universities have always invested big in buildings. Part of it has been about the practicality of getting the right facilities, some of it about prestige too but also more these days about student (and to a lesser extent staff) recruitment. There are some spectacular university buildings around the world (see this earlier post on the subject and this one on a strange campus in China) and some pretty awful ones too. Thanks to the recent publicity about its new building everyone now knows the name of North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power:
But how well do you know UK university architecture?
Here are 15 university buildings, some old, some very new, some are award-winners but others are less appealing. How many UK universities can you identify from their architecture? List your answers in the comments section and our independent assessors will check your responses as soon as possible and publicise your score.
Answers to follow.
There’ll be many congratulations (but probably not a prize) for the highest score.
So, which UK universities are these?
Number 1
Number 2
Number 3
Number 4
Number 5
Number 6
Number 7
Number 8
Number 9
Number 10
Number 11
Number 12
Number 13
Number 14
Number 15
This really is as exciting as it gets.
List your answers in the comments section below and our expert assessors will judge your performance. Good luck!
(NB one person has posted what look like very clever answers below – please ignore these until you have made your own guesses.)
#WonkHEquiz
I think 4 is Oxford’s admin building…quite fancy working at 15 🙂
I’m assuming you got number 5, Claudie?
I’m in number 7 now – Park Building at the University of Portsmouth!
[Post] Modern architecture trying hard to look exciting but failing to realise that now engineers can make buildings in almost any form we are no longer impressed by strange angles and anachronistic combinations of materials. Frank Gehry’s been there, done it, got bored.
(That rant is just an excuse to cover the fact I can’t identify any of the buildings!)
A rant worth having!
Number 9 is Northumbria Uni (which largely demonstrates I can read), 11 is the Diamond Building at the University of Sheffield and 15 is the Sir Colin Campbell Building on the Jubilee Campus of the University of Nottingham. Vaguely recognise some of the others but am not confident enough to put a name to them!
*Spoiler alert* – but I did wait a day before posting…. I wonder whether the intangibility of the ‘product’ of HE contributes to Governors’ love of a retrospective look at a shiny new edifice, which means we celebrate and perhaps over-prioritise the interventions in our real estate, over investment and focus in our virtual infrastructure? Can we infer any meaningful correlations between the construction of impressive structures (generally outsourced) and the delivery of inspiring education within them? Speaking of digital developments – isn’t technology wonderful – it’s amazing how you can enhance a basic framework of knowledge with google and… Read more »
Outstanding work but I’ll have to refer your mug request to the Editor…
With number 1 it was rumoured that at one point when it was being built, the police were called one night as someone thought it was falling over !.
understandable!
Awesome blog! Can’t say we know any of these, have to say we need to brush up on our Uni buildings! :-S
Theres tons of more info on University of Nottingham over at University Compare: http://universitycompare.com/universities/uni-of-nottingham/
P.S. We might have to brush up on our Uni’s before we come back! 😉