Albert Einstein House & Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States, North America

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• published: 24 May 2013
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Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Princeton does not have schools of medicine, law, divinity, or business, but it does offer professional degrees through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of Architecture. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as the College of New Jersey, the university moved to Newark in 1747, then to Princeton in 1756 and was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The present-day College of New Jersey in nearby Ewing Township, New Jersey, is an unrelated institution. Princeton was the fourth chartered institution of higher education in the American colonies. Princeton had close ties to the Presbyterian Church, but has never been affiliated with any denomination and today imposes no religious requirements on its students. The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Princeton has been associated with 35 Nobel Laureates, 17 National Medal of Science winners, and three National Humanities Medal winners. On a per-student basis, Princeton has the largest university endowment in the world. The main campus sits on about 500 acres (2.0 km2) in Princeton. The James Forrestal Campus is split between nearby Plainsboro and South Brunswick. The University also owns some property in West Windsor Township. The campuses are situated about one hour from both New York City and Philadelphia. The first building on campus was Nassau Hall, completed in 1756, and situated on the northern edge of campus facing Nassau Street. The campus expanded steadily around Nassau Hall during the early and middle 19th century. The McCosh presidency (1868--88) saw the construction of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles; many of them are now gone, leaving the remaining few to appear out of place. At the end of the 19th century Princeton adopted the Collegiate Gothic style for which it is known today. Implemented initially by William Appleton Potter and later enforced by the University's supervising architect, Ralph Adams Cram, the Collegiate Gothic style remained the standard for all new building on the Princeton campus through 1960. A flurry of construction in the 1960s produced a number of new buildings on the south side of the main campus, many of which have been poorly received. Several prominent architects have contributed some more recent additions, including Frank Gehry (Lewis Library), I.M. Pei (Spelman Halls), Demetri Porphyrios (Whitman College, a Collegiate Gothic project), Robert Venturi (Frist Campus Center, among several others), and Rafael Viñoly (Carl Icahn Laboratory). A group of 20th-century sculptures scattered throughout the campus forms the Putnam Collection of Sculpture. It includes works by Alexander Calder (Five Disks: One Empty), Jacob Epstein (Albert Einstein), Henry Moore (Oval With Points), Isamu Noguchi (White Sun), and Pablo Picasso (Head of a Woman). Richard Serra's The Hedgehog and The Fox is located between Peyton and Fine halls next to Princeton Stadium and the Lewis Library. At the southern edge of the campus is Lake Carnegie, a man-made lake named for Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie financed the lake's construction in 1906 at the behest of a friend who was a Princeton alumnus. Carnegie hoped the opportunity to take up rowing would inspire Princeton students to forsake football, which he considered "not gentlemanly".