Book excerpt: This volume, for the first time, presents the total physical world of the college campus as a bona fide art form. It analyzes the aesthetic elements involved in the spawning and savaging of college grounds. The ideal campus design, once defined, is held up to over 100 campuses throughout the United States, and the relative artistic merit of each evaluated. Both the best and the worst in campus design are critically observed from the standpoint of urban space, architectural quality, landscape, and overall appeal. Variables such as regional differences, historical perspective, expansion, and visual focus also figure in the evaluation. A list of the fifty most artistically successful campuses in the country concludes this highly readable and yet academically valid work exploring a discrete artistic discipline.