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Coming Full Circle: The History of the University of Illinois Chicago

Aerial view of an architectural model of the UIC campus

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The Circle Campus, 1965-1982 29 plain 2020-12-14T14:42:50-06:00
The site for the new University of Illinois at Chicago Circle campus consisted of 105 acres at the corner of Halstead and Harrison streets. Originally, the campus was named University of Illinois at Congress Circle for the nearby Congress Interchange. That name for the junction between the Dan Ryan, Kennedy, and Eisenhower expressways changed to the Circle Interchange in late 1964 (becoming the Jane Byrne Interchange in 2014) prompting the last-minute adjustment to the campus name just prior to its "unofficial" opening on February 22, 1965.

To design the campus, the university chose the firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill led by architect Walter Netsch, who designed the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Netsch designed the campus in the Brutalist style based on the metaphor of a stone dropped in a pond of water. At the center was The Circle Forum, a Greek-styled amphitheater built for plays, assemblies and concerts. Each ripple outward from the center held buildings with common functions.
A series of elevated walkways tied the campus together. The walkways served the practical purpose of moving an enormous number of students efficiently through the campus’ small footprint. The spine of the walkways was a north-south corridor that ran from the Polk Street entrance to the Chicago Transit Authority’s Halsted Street stop on the north to The Great Court in the campus core and from The Great Court to the parking lots and athletic fields south of Taylor Street.

Surrounding the campus was an eight-foot tall brick wall and a decorative metal fence that echoed the structure of tallest building on campus, the 28-story University Hall. The enclosed nature of the campus further alienated nearby residents who were already unhappy with the loss of a significant portion of the neighborhood for the university.

Design
"A stone dropped in a pond of water," was the metaphor architect Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) used to describe the design for the new University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (UICC) campus. Netsch proposed the campus be built in the Brutalist style, which featured the primary construction materials of concrete, Minnesota granite, and brick. Netsch's metaphor was used to organize the campus buildings by function on each ring out from the campus core.

At the campus core was The Circle Forum, a Greek-styled amphitheater built for plays, assemblies and concerts. Around the Forum in the first ring was the Lecture Center, a series of six buildings designed with large classrooms and lecture halls. The roofs of these buildings made up The Great Court, a modern reimagining of the campus quad in granite and concrete that included four exedrae that could be used for outdoor classes, smaller gatherings, studying or relaxing. In the next ring were the classroom clusters anchored by two main student buildings, namely the Library (currently, Richard J. Daley Library) and the student union (Chicago Circle Center, and currently, Student Center East). Still farther from the center were offices and laboratories, and on the farthest ring were the athletic fields.
While Netsch was the lead architect on the project for SOM, he did not directly design all Circle campus buildings. C.F. Murphy designed the Chicago Circle Center while also designing the Illini Union (currently, Student Center West) for the University of Illinois at the Medical Center (currently, west side of campus), both built in 1964. Harry Weese designed the Physical Education Building and the Education and Communications Building (currently, Education, Theatre, Music, and Social Work) for Phase Three.
Netsch’s design for Circle Campus won a number of prestigious awards, becoming a nationally known model for other "instant" campuses to be built in the 1960s and '70s. There were, however, some serious problems once the campus was built. The brick walls and fences surrounding the campus further separated it from the neighborhood, leading to its nickname “Fortress Illini.” Many students and faculty found the concrete harsh and alienating. Water from rain and snow dripped from The Great Court and walkways onto the ground-level walkways, often for quite some time after a weather event had passed. Some of The Great Court's granite blocks shifted, leaving dangerous tripping hazards that eventually forced this space to be closed. When enrollment only reached 18,000 students instead of the projected 32,000 students, the walkways became superfluous, maintenance declined, and they slowly crumbled. The Great Court, The Circle Forum, and the elevated walkways were demolished during the 1990s in an effort to revitalize the campus core, but at the expense of Netsch's original vision.
Construction

Circle Campus was built in three phases. Campus construction began in 1963, but when the University opened in 1965 only the Phase One campus core buildings were ready. The second and third phases of campus construction lasted from 1965 through 1971.
Phase One – 1963 to 1965
- Netsch-designed buildings: University Hall, Lecture Centers and walkways, Library (currently, Richard J. Daley Library; center section), Science and Engineering Labs (north section), and classroom buildings, including: Jefferson Hall; Civil War cluster: Lincoln Hall, Douglas Hall, Grant Hall; Chicago Cluster: Addams Hall, Burnham Hall, and Taft Hall
- C.F. Murphy-designed building: Chicago Circle Center (currently, Student Center East)
Phase Two – 1966 to 1968
- Netsch-designed buildings: Library (north and south additions), Science and Engineering Labs (center addition), Science and Engineering Offices, Art and Architecture (currently, Architecture and Design Studios), Henry Hall, and Stevenson Hall
Phase Three – 1967 to 1971
- Netsch-designed buildings: Behavioral Science Building and Science and Engineering South (constructed between 1967 and 1969)
- Harry Weese-designed buildings: Physical Education Building; Theater; Education, Performing Arts, and Social Work (currently, Education, Theatre, Music and Social Work; constructed between 1968 and 1971)
- Canceled buildings: Architecture and Art (east addition), Library (west wing), Science and Engineering Labs (south addition), and two classroom buildings which were to form a cluster with Stevenson Hall
Phase Four – 1970
All Phase Four buildings were canceled.
- Netsch-designed building: Science and Engineering South addition
- Weese-designed buildings: Performing Arts and Classroom/Office Building
Opening Day- February 22, 1965
It was 16 degrees at the 11 a.m. Opening Ceremony for the opening of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (UICC) campus on February 22, 1965. ROTC cadets stretched three symbolic ribbons on the walkway leading into the north side of the Science and Engineering Laboratory in front of the various dignitaries on hand for the historic event. The dignitaries included Governor Otto Kerner, U of I Board of Trustees President Howard Clement, University President David Dodds Henry, Circle Chancellor Norman Parker, UICC Student Congress President Anthony Podesta, and Mayor Richard J. Daley. Kerner, Daley and Henry each cut one of the ceremonial ribbons to officially open the new campus.
At the opening ceremony, Mayor Daley delivered a speech where he said, “Our world is becoming more and more urbanized. Of necessity, a university which truly seeks to meet the needs of society must be a part of urban life. Just as universities make great cities, so too, great cities make great universities — and the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle is destined to be one of the great universities of our nation.”
Phase I construction continued on the campus and stretched into summer of 1965. At the opening, the only major work outstanding were the top five floors of University Hall. Other tasks to be completed included minor work, “punch list” items, and the replacement of the granite stairs north of the Lecture Center, which arrived cracked from the shipping docks.
For a time, Circle Campus was the fastest growing campus in the country. Enrollment started at around 5,000 students, grew to almost 8,500 by winter quarter, 1965-66, and then climbed to 17,500 by 1970-71 — an increase of 250 percent in just five years.
Great Court & Circle Forum

At the heart of the University of Illinois Chicago Circle stood a classical amphitheater known as The Circle Forum. This was the center of campus life, home to concerts, performances, and student protests. On an average day, the Forum was used for hanging out with friends, studying between classes, practicing an instrument, or napping. Nine rows of stone benches formed semicircles to the north and south around a slightly raised circular platform in the center. The simplest way to travel from one building to another in the campus core was to pass through this area.
Inspired by classical motifs like the agora in ancient Greece, the Forum, and the Lecture Centers represented the center of learning, the place where students and their teachers gathered to discuss ideas. From there, learning extended outwards in all directions. “What happens between classes came to be regarded as being as important as what happens in classes,” said Walter Netsch. His campus design facilitated “the meeting-in-the-corridor on a grand scale.”
One level higher, the roofs of the surrounding Lecture Center buildings formed a vast plaza called The Great Court. This space was an urban campus version of the traditional campus quadrangle. Granite replaced the traditional lawn, but the space was used in much the same ways as traditional quads: as a place to meet with friends to talk, study, blow off steam, or sunbathe.
The Great Court was punctuated by four seating areas, known as exedrae, which echoed the Forum on a smaller scale. Short walkways to the east and west tied The Great Court to the Chicago Circle Center and the Library and featured stairs down to the Lecture Centers. The north and south elevated walkway corridors tied this central structure to all the surrounding campus buildings. The main entrance to campus buildings was on the second level.
Exedrae

The four exedrae, one in each corner of The Great Court, were a modern take on versions from ancient Greece and Rome meant to foster conversation by placing curved stone seating in a semicircle. The Great Court’s exedrae were full circles with a number of openings, and each sat on raised squares made of alternating shades of granite that radiated outward. At night, the inside and outside of each exedra was lit for dramatic effect.
The acoustics inside the exedrae were said to be excellent. A speaker required no amplification to be heard clearly, even with the nearby expressways and typical city noises.
Elevated Walkways
When the Circle campus opened in 1965, a broad elevated walkway ran from the north side of Harrison Street all the way to Lecture Center A, where it joined The Great Court above The Circle Forum. Beyond the Forum, it continued south from Lecture Center D and through the Science and Engineering Labs to parking lots and athletic fields south of Taylor Street. This corridor was the north-south spine of the campus. Connecting walkways provided access to most campus buildings' main entrances on the second level. The ground level was closed to foot traffic, except around the single-story Lecture Centers, as construction on Phase I was still in progress on opening day.

For the first twenty-eight years, students moved around the campus via this extensive system of elevated “pedestrian expressways” linking most campus buildings. This was Walter Netsch’s original idea to avoid creating an uninterrupted expanse of concrete in the tightly bounded area of the campus. Concrete and slabs of Minnesota granite, ten by twenty feet and a 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 grew, softening the overall effect. Besides transporting people above, the walkways sheltered pedestrians below among “urban trees,” as Netsch referred to his butterfly columns that supported the walkways. Today only photographs of the north-south walkways remain; a wide sidewalk traces the route.

Over a six-year period ending in 1999 the walkways were removed to create a greener, more welcoming campus environment. The Circle Forum and The Great Court were dismantled at the same time. This was a highly controversial project which resulted in the elimination of significant elements of the Netsch design.
As with the 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, which used it to build an artificial reef at 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive. A number of the “tiger tooth” granite bollards survived demolition and are found around campus and the neighborhood. A few of the bollards are still connected with the original thick, metal chain.

Field Theory
Walter Netsch began developing his signature Field Theory aesthetic during campus construction. He changed building designs for the second and third construction phases to take advantage of this new concept. Netsch devised Field Theory as an intellectual exercise in an effort to escape “the boredom of the box.” He used the complex geometries taking a square and laying another square rotated 45 degrees on top. This created “diagonally oriented squares or more complicated star-shaped clusters, specifically avoiding the build-up of large rectangular volumes or boxes with outthrusts—the almost universal way of building architectural shapes.”
Three unique Field Theory buildings built on Circle campus include: Art and Architecture, Behavioral Sciences Building, and Science and Engineering South.

Architecture and Art was the first Field Theory building. Only 40 percent of the building was built in Phase Two. The completed portion included departmental offices, a planned library, and studios. The classroom wings that were to be added in a later phase were never built, leaving the building in an unfinished state that did not completely realize the design concept.

Behavioral Sciences Building is a four-story geometric structure west of what was Morgan Street where it passed under the elevated walkway to the University Hall Plaza. Dating from the third phase of campus construction, the building combines concrete and brick in what Netsch considered his most sophisticated example of Field Theory design on campus. The geometric complexity of the building renders the interior extremely difficult to navigate for the first-time visitors.

Science and Engineering South, also built in Phase Three, is the third Field Theory design building. The two major wings of the building contain offices and laboratories to the east and classrooms and a library to the west. A planned phase four addition was cancelled. The covered breezeway area is where the elevated walkway connected to the building.