Castles of K-State

Abstract

One of the most notable things about the Kansas State University campus is its abundance of castles. This paper argues that these castles were designed to match earlier buildings that were a part of medieval revival styles in architecture, particularly the Romanesque. What the medieval meant to the adopters of the Romanesque was different from the ideas of Englishness and aristocracy of the Gothic revival, yet they shared the use of medieval architecture as a statement against the standardization and cold logic of the Industrial Revolution. While the meaning and significance of the K-State castles has changed over the century or so they have existed, the differing values of what the medieval and modern symbolize still appear when new castles are built and the old ones restored.