northwestern

I spent the weekend in Evanston, most of it on the Northwestern campus. The landscaping there is genius.

It's right on Lake Michigan. It's one of those dense campuses, with a bunch of massive buildings crammed together, all built in different eras, so they don't quite match architecturally. In between these monstrossities are small, odd-shaped slices of land. Here grow shrubs and flowers and grass and trees and trees and trees, such that every parcel seems its own complete world.

The trees are particularly stunning. It's as if each one was painstakingly calculated, planted and pruned to provide a perfect mix of shade and sun. I loved the way the branches and leaves shrouded some of the buildings almost completely. It was like walking through a city, with its collage of geometric shape, that had been cut up and remixed with nature.

I wonder who the head landscaper is.

(The photo above links to more blurry camera-phone pix that do the place no justice.)