Forbes asked a panel of architects and campus designers to nominate their picks for the best-looking campuses in the world in 2010. Tsinghua university is among their 14 top choices. Here is their comment on Tsinghua University. 

“Our panel of architects says natural setting plays a big part in assessing a campus' beauty. In that regard, this campus is blessed: Founded in 1925, Tsinghua sits on the former site of the Qing Dynasty's royal gardens. Many of Beijing's most notable historical sites, like the Summer Palace, are close by. The campus is peppered with artificial ponds where stone benches and floating lotus blossoms inspire reflection. The landscaping and many of the buildings are traditional Chinese, but the campus also boasts many Western-style edifices, such as the quad and auditorium: T. Chuang, the university's principal architect, was a 1914 graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.”