Hate the UIC campus? Don't blame Walter
Posted 6/18/2008 by Joe Zekas"It was one of the greener campuses anywhere. But it was radical, and to some it was wrong."
– Oral history of Walter Netsch, p. 211 (pdf), The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architects Oral History Project
Walter Netsch, who died just recently, came to hate the UIC campus as much as anyone. Read his idiosyncratic take on it at the link above.
Comments
6/18/08
milly said:
I won't blame Walter, but something went wrong. My dad worked in that vertical prison dureing the 70's and 80's. The minute you walked into that place, you wanted to run back out. The walls were brown brick with flourescent lighting that thew a green shade over everything.And what was with that concrete bowl with no shade about?
6/19/08
Sheridan B. said:
Milly, you realize that was intentional, right? University Hall was designed to BE a fortress and even to be able to accomodate helicopter evacuations should students take the building.
In fact, everything on the original campus was designed for the ugly mood in urban American then - to keep those who didn't "belong" (i.e. non-students and staff) from being able to easily get in or out.
Local Realtor said:
One of the marks of a true-blue Chicagoan: you refer to the UIC campus as "Circle."
It's a kind of pun based on the "circle" of buildings on the campus, and its location near the "circle interchange" of expressways.
In addition, Mr. Netsch and his wife Dawn should be properly regarded as the brains behind the "flowers in the medians" that some people think was completely the idea of our current mayor. Actually, the Netsches presented this idea to Mayor Washington towards the end of his too-short stint as mayor, and were reviled by some of the press (hello, "Snide") for it. How things change…
milly said:
Intentional or not, going to work with daddy in that building was no field trip when I was a kid. You'd forget the sun even existed once you got in that place. I think my mom has a yearbook from the "circle's" opening.