Fodor's Expert Review Black Mountain College

Originally housed in rented quarters at nearby Blue Ridge Assembly, southeast of the town of Black Mountain, Black Mountain College moved across the valley to its own campus at Lake Eden in 1941. Today the site is Camp Rockmont, a privately owned summer camp for boys. The school's buildings originally were designed by the Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, but the college turned to an American architect, Lawrence Kocher, and several intriguing buildings resulted, including one known as "The Ship," which still stands. BMC attracted maverick spirits in art, music, and literature, including Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, Buckminster Fuller, M. C. Richards, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Kenneth Noland, Ben Shahn, Arthur Penn, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and others. Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center is in downtown Asheville at 120 College Street and holds occasional events at Lake Eden.