As an urban campus with a 217-year history, the University of South Carolina has undergone its share of architectural changes. Buildings have been demolished, remodeled, renamed — and once, in the case of Flinn Hall, picked up and moved. Streets have been closed to accommodate construction; streets have been extended, altering campus boundaries. The landscape has changed and changed again.
Don't believe it? Stroll through the heart of campus. Start at the Horseshoe, amble onto Gibbes Green. Wander down Sumter Street, cross Davis Field. There's history at every turn. You may need an expert to help you see it all, but it's all still there — even its absence.
To open our eyes to the invisible, USC Times enlisted Lydia Mattice Brandt, associate professor in the School of Visual Arts and Design, who has used campus as an “architectural lab” in her graduate-level American architecture class every spring since 2015. We checked our facts with university archivist Elizabeth West, who also steered us to the worst campus dining of the past 200 years — and helped us appreciate just how far we've come.“I have never done anything that captured so many people's curiosity,” she says.
