UT Austin Campus Tour

The University of Texas opened on its original Forty Acres north of the Capitol in 1883, and the campus has spread far beyond that square since. Its look was set in the 1910s and 1930s by architects Cass Gilbert and Paul Cret, whose red tile roofs and limestone walls still define the core. This walk starts at a cattleman's Victorian mansion, climbs to the Tower, passes the old library and a world-class rare-books archive, descends the South Mall past a World War I fountain, and ends at an Ellsworth Kelly art chapel and the Longhorns' memorial stadium.

This walk through the heart of the University of Texas at Austin shows how a campus becomes a landmark. The university opened in 1883, and its signature look of red tile roofs and limestone walls took shape in the 1910s and 1930s under architects Cass Gilbert and Paul Cret.

The Main Building and its 307-foot Tower, completed in 1937, anchor everything. The Tower holds a 56-bell carillon, glows orange for victories and milestones, and also carries the memory of the 1966 shooting, whose victims are honored nearby. Below it, Pompeo Coppini's Littlefield Fountain, dedicated in 1933, pays tribute to the university's World War I dead with a bronze Columbia riding a ship's prow among sea horses.

Art and rare books are a big part of the experience. At the Harry Ransom Center, a complete Gutenberg Bible is on permanent display alongside Nicéphore Niépce's view from a window at Le Gras, made around 1827 and regarded as the earliest surviving photograph from nature. Ellsworth Kelly's Austin, a chapel-like building with hand-blown glass windows, opened at the Blanton Museum in 2018; Kelly intended it as a space for contemplating light and color rather than a house of worship for any faith.

Along the way you'll also see early buildings whose Spanish-Mediterranean style Cret adopted as the model for his 1933 campus plan. It's a rewarding route for art, architecture and history lovers alike.