Since the first colleges and universities in the United States were founded in the 17th century, they’ve been hiring top-tier architects to design buildings for their campuses. One of the earliest cases is the Wren building at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the venerated architect of London’s St. Paul's Cathedral, which was built between 1695 and 1700 and is still used today. The tradition has carried on, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries, as starchitects from Frank Lloyd Wright to Zaha Hadid have been commissioned by universities across the country. Though oftentimes the structures are quite avant-garde and therefore sometimes controversial—think Marcel Breuer’s Brutalism or Frank Gehry’s reflective, undulating façades—they ultimately become a crucial part of a school’s identity and beloved by architectural historians and students alike. Here, take a look at 14 iconic buildings designed by world-famous architects at universities across the United States.

Zaha Hadid’s Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan)

The late, great Zaha Hadid won a design competition for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Opened in 2012, the museum features the Pritzker Prize–winning architect’s signature futuristic style, with horizontal and diagonal lines creating a sense of motion through the building.

Frank Gehry’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York)

Bard College tapped Frank Gehry to design its Fisher Center Performing Arts, a 110,000-square-foot building with two theaters and four rehearsal studios. “The front façade of the building can be interpreted as a theatrical mask that covers the raw face of the performance space,” said the architect of the metallic sheets comprising the façade.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s S. R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, Illinois)

Appropriately home to the Illinois Institute of Technology's architecture school in Chicago, S. R. Crown Hall was designed by modernist legend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and is one of the architect’s most highly regarded buildings. The glass-and-steel structure is intended to be highly minimalist in nature—the architect himself referred to it as “almost nothing.”

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Annie Pfeiffer Chapel at Florida Southern College (Lakeland, Florida)

Legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed 12 buildings for Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, including the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel, built in 1941. The highly geometric structure, which features a three-story concrete tower, stands as the spiritual center of the school. Architectural tours of the campus, which has the largest collection of Wright buildings in a single location, are available to the public.

Frank Gehry’s Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

One of the architectural masterpieces on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota is the Frank Gehry–designed Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art. The curvaceous museum was one of the architect’s earlier works, erected in 1993—impressively, well before the prevalence of computer-aided design (CAD). It takes the abstracted shapes of a waterfall and a fish.

Marcel Breuer’s Meister Hall at Bronx Community College (Bronx, New York)

Bauhaus-trained architect Marcel Breuer’s most famous building in New York might be the former Whitney building on Madison Avenue, now the the Met Breuer, but it’s not his only work in the city. He was commissioned in the 1950s to design the master plan for what was then New York University’s University Heights campus in the Bronx; today the campus belongs to the Bronx Community College. One of his crown jewels is Meister Hall, formerly known as Tech II, the last of Breuer’s buildings to be constructed on the campus, erected in 1970.

Renzo Piano’s Harvard Art Museums at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Originally three separate buildings housing the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts, were consolidated into one structure through a multimillion-dollar renovation by Italian architect Renzo Piano in 2014.

Eero Saarinen’s Kresge Auditorium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Famed Finnish architect Eero Saarinen built the Kresge Auditorium, the neighboring MIT Chapel, and the lawn separating the two on the university’s Cambridge campus in the mid-1950s. The auditorium features a broad leaf-shaped concrete roof seemingly supported by glass curtain walls. (In reality, it’s the pendentives holding the structure up.)

Louis Kahn’s Richards Medical Research Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

When Philadelphia’s University of Pennsylvania needed a new medical laboratory built in the mid-1950s, the school turned to one of its own faculty members, Albert Kahn, to design it. Though decidedly modern in style, the structures nod to classic Italian architecture with their tall brick towers.

Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Le Corbusier’s only building in the United States, the Carpenter Center at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, stands out among its Georgian-style neighbors with its modernist concrete hulk. The French architect designed it in collaboration with Chilean architect Guillermo Jullian de la Fuentes and Josep Lluís Sert, then dean of the university’s graduate school of design. It was constructed in 1962.

Minoru Yamasaki’s Bibbins Hall at Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio)

Minoru Yamasaki designed Bibbins Hall, completed in 1963, and two adjacent buildings to house Oberlin’s Conservatory of Music, located in Oberlin, Ohio. The façade served as inspiration for the Japanese-American architect’s most famous project, the original World Trade Center in New York, which was constructed a decade later. The long, thin windows were inspired by Gothic architecture.

Santiago Calatrava’s Innovation, Science, and Technology Building (IST) at Florida Polytechnic University (Lakeland, Florida)

For Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland, Florida, Spanish contemporary architect Santiago Calatrava designed not only the IST Building, which is the centerpiece of the campus, but also the school’s entire master plan, utilizing his iconic bonelike structures. The university’s logo is actually derived from Calatrava’s work.

Eero Saarinen’s David S. Ingalls Rink at Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut)

A graduate of Yale University’s School of Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut, Eero Saarinen designed this hockey rink for his alma mater; it was completed in 1958. Affectionately known as the Yale Whale, the building features some of Saarinen’s classic engineering ingenuity—the undulating roof is hung from the massive concrete “spine,” which allows for an interior with no columns.

I. M. Pei’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York)

The towering concrete Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell Unversity in Ithaca, New York, was designed by I. M. Pei and built in 1973—it was the third museum project by the renowned Chinese-American architect, who would later go on to design the Louvre’s glass pyramid. The fifth-floor cantilever extends over an outdoor sculpture garden and offers a view of nearby Cayuga Lake.