Ouran High School Campus

One thing is for certain as I make my list of cool buildings for Fantasy Friday, is that most of the anime’s I’ve watched have incredible school campuses. Ouran High School is just one of the few that really caught my eye.  Ouran is such a classic anime for me. It’s one of my favorites, and I’m completely butt hurt that Netflix decided to remove it from their list of anime. *sigh* But thankfully, Funimation has it up on their site. I actually have a few more posts where architecture and ouran is concerned; I still need to do a bit more research but I’m really excited about those posts! It wouldn’t be considered Fantasy Friday and it wouldn’t be ANI-Reality either.  Those belong to a category of their own and will most likely be published as a Sunday Special where there is no real specialized theme-but more on that at a later date. Without further ado….

“Welcome, we the Ouran Host Club will see you now”

The Ouran High School Campus looks inspired by mid-ninteenth century Paris, France. The style of Architecture during that time frame was called “Beaux-Arts” or “Fine Arts”. This particular style had a sculptural quality to it, and dealt a lot with symmetry and classical references to Greek and Roman Architecture. There are 3 buildings in which Ouran is inspired by: Romes’ St. Peter’s Basilica, England’s Buckingham Palace, and Paris’ Place de Concorde, as shown in the images above.

The garden is also an architectural reference to the French Formal Garden of the 18-19th century. A great example of this would be the Gardens of Versailles, found in the Palace of Versailles. The french formal garden consisted of a rigid symmetry of pathways which enforced the idea of imposing order on nature, as shown in Versaille’s plan shown in the middle of the above photo. The french garden’s history stems from that of the Italian Renaissance Garden which is often characterized with: symmetrical patterns, geometric shapes, and the use of fountains and other water features that gave the garden some movement. Often times gardens would be done at different heights and levels, in which all the pathways would cross up and down through the garden. The gardens were meant to express the ideals of the Renaissance and the ideals of Ancient Rome.

The interiors of the school also carries the theme of the mid-ninteenth centuy motif. Grand staircases, Symmetry, classical architecture (greek/roman), arched windows and it also borrows from the 19th-century Gothic Revival style with the use of the Gothic vault shown in the second photo above. I find a lot of these images to be similar to views shown in the Palace of Versailles as well – which could have very well been another source of inspiration.

I find the use of mid-ninteenth century Parisian aesthetics amusing because what other style best represents the qualities of the rich, wealthy, and extravagant? I also find the parallel between Tamaki’s heritage to that the school’s aesthetic to be interesting as well – but that’s being saved for another post ;). Classical architecture was the launching point for my architecutral interest; especially the gothic revival style. I went to a gothic style cathedral as a kid and was completely blown away by how amazing it was. I was in awe of it’s beauty…of the pointed arches, columns and stained glass, but I was also scared and terrified of the dark spaces and the gargoyles. However, what really drew my interest was the light that filtered in through the dark space I was mindblown by the beauty of it all. I was so inpsired by that feeling …that well..the rest is history so to speak. That one moment lead me to my career and appreciation of theory and analysis of that one moment. Till next time!

“The Ouran Host Club will be waiting for you…
We’ll see you then.” – Ouran High School Host Club