The Historic Netsch Campus

Second-Story Walkways

When the Circle Campus opened in 1965, a broad second-story walkway ran from the north side of Harrison Street all the way to Lecture Center A, where it joined the Great Court above Circle Forum. Beyond the Forum, the walkway continued south to Science and Engineering South. This was the north-south spine of the campus.

For the first thirty years of UIC's history, students moved around the campus via an extensive system of elevated “pedestrian expressways” that linked all the buildings together. This was Netsch’s original idea to avoid creating an uninterrupted expanse of concrete in the tightly bounded area of the campus. Concrete and slabs of granite, ten by twenty feet and one foot thick, were used in their construction. Down the center of large sections of the walkways, Netsch left an opening through which shrubs and trees could grow, softening the overall effect. Besides transporting people above, the walkways sheltered pedestrians below among “urban trees,” as Netsch referred to the columns supporting them. Today only photographs of the north-south walkways remain; a wide sidewalk traces the route.

Fate of the Walkways

Over a six-year period which ended in 1999, the walkways were removed to create a greener, more welcoming campus environment. Circle Forum and The Great Court were dismantled at the same time. This was a controversial project which resulted in the elimination of significant elements of the Netsch design.

As with Circle Forum and The Great Court, maintenance of the walkways was difficult, especially in winter, when snow had to be removed from exposed surfaces and the stairways leading up to them. Netsch had designed the steps with heating elements to melt the snow, but the transformers failed and were never replaced. Salt, in conjunction with the annual freeze and thaw cycles, gradually caused the concrete stairways to crack and deteriorate, seriously limiting access and use.

Granite damaged during demolition was donated to the city of Chicago to build an artificial reef at 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive. Today, 37 percent of the campus is devoted to green space, which includes more than 5,000 deciduous and evergreen trees.

ComEd Walkway Remnant

A remnant of the second-story walkway system, an important element of the original campus design, once survived their destruction in the 1990s at the entrance to the Architecture and Art building (now the Art and Design Studios). A sign bearing that building name covered this walkway completely.

Measuring 200 feet in length, this particular walkway was unique in that it was constructed of steel, not granite, and it was the only screened walkway on campus. The box truss design made it possible to lower the structure into place over the brick-enclosed Commonwealth Edison property just west of Architecture and Art.

The Com Ed electrical substation once spanned by this walkway was removed and is now a grassy field.

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