Charles McKim, 1895–97: New York City Individual and Interior Landmark, State and National Registers of Historic Places

Charles McKim designed the campus in the Beaux-Arts style popularized at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Its focal point is Low Library, designed in the Roman Classical style, with Italian Renaissance–inspired classroom buildings flanking it in the forecourt and rear. Fashioned after the Baths of Caracalla and the Pantheon, the library’s granite dome is the country’s largest. The university outgrew Low Library in the 1920s, and a new library named for then president Nicholas Murray Butler was built on the campus’ southern end.