The gothic elegance of University Hall. The Venetian style of Annie May Swift Hall. The modern sophistication of the McCormick Tribune Center.
A quick walk around the Evanston Campus proves that Northwestern has crammed 151 years of architectural history into a 240-acre space.
Although some have criticized the campus for its lack of common design, NU’s architectural style is defined by its lack of consistency.
“There wasn’t a single architectural style that emerged in the early years of the university, so we didn’t have that history that other universities have,” said Ronald Nayler, associate vice president for facilities management. “There was an eclecticism already apparent on the campus.”
This diversity distinguishes NU from other campuses, he said.
“We are not like some campuses, such as the University of Chicago, where they have a collegiate gothic style that they’ve tried to maintain even as they do new buildings,” Nayler said. “We are not like (University of Illinois at Chicago), which many critics have said is very cold with concrete buildings.”
According to Curt Heuring, university architect for the University of Chicago, an eclectic mix of buildings is not always a roadblock on the path to defining architectural style.
“Campus unity and integrity, I believe, depend less on a unifying architectural style, such as collegiate gothic, than they do on some overall planning and building design principles,” he said.
With new buildings popping up faster than you can say “nanofabrication,” the campus continues to reflect a variety of architectural styles.
FORM versus FUNCTION
Since Nayler came to NU in 1997, Facilities Management has been responsible for both the design and maintenance of campus buildings. This system replaced the need for a university architect, who previously oversaw all construction projects.
Gabor Zsolnay, who served as the university architect from 1968 to 1997, witnessed the evolution of the campus firsthand. When his term began, he said he was keenly aware of NU’s architectural agenda.
“At that time the sense was that the campus should work as a whole and that there should be a consistent theme,” Zsolnay said. “There should not be any jarring architectural statements. In general, the goal was to have competent architecture but not competing architecture.”
Ironically, Zsolnay came aboard just as finishing touches were being put on University Library — a building that today’s NU students love to hate.
“I think the architecture of the library is retro but in a bad way, and it needs to be updated,” said Nicolette Gorder, an Education sophomore. “I think it’s kind of confusing and when I was a freshman I was completely lost — just because there are so many sections.”
But this was not the prevailing opinion when it opened in 1970.
“At the time that the library was finished, it really did receive rave reviews both in the architectural community and from students,” Zsolnay said. “The initial sense was that the configuration and the articulation of the building both on the inside and the outside was quite well received, but with the passage of time I think the library’s image has suffered.”
Zsolnay said period-focused buildings such as the library tend to become unattractive after a relatively short period of time.
HULKING HOGAN
Hogan Biological Sciences Building, another Lakefill edifice designed by University Library architect Walter Netsch, also opened in 1970. Although the circular towers of the library at least serve their function, Hogan has been maligned by NU faculty as an ineptly designed scientific facility.
“Laboratories do not open onto the main corridor,” said Robert Holmgren, a biochemistry professor. “Therefore, each laboratory is very isolated from the neighbors, and this stifles collaboration between individuals in laboratory groups.”
Other aspects of the building’s design make working conditions particularly unpleasant, Holmgren said.
“The windows are positioned at oblique angles, and therefore if you want to look out a window, you generally have to stand on a laboratory bench,” he said.
Holmgren said he and his colleagues set up mirrors to reflect daylight into their offices.
According to Nayler, buildings such as Hogan and University Library are the products of misguided architectural methods. Functional problems can be avoided by adhering to what he calls the “inside-out” architecture approach, exemplified in Zsolnay’s later projects.
Before Pick-Staiger Concert Hall opened in 1975, those involved in the construction of the building decided to emphasize the building’s inner beauty. The building gained renown for the fine quality of its interior acoustics.
“On the exterior, Pick-Staiger is attractive — not stellar — but still satisfying,” he said. “It represents the goals that I understood at Northwestern, to have interior function. The emphasis and the funds were spent on the interior rather than the exterior.”
Diversity from the start
When NU held its first class in 1855, the campus consisted of a single building. Although the original building, known as Old College, was razed in 1973, more than 150 buildings have cropped up on campus throughout the years. The stories behind these buildings are as diverse as the structures themselves.
“There are a lot of different time periods, and I think the aspirations in different periods varied,” Zsolnay said. “But the older buildings are outstanding.”
Shortly after the Civil War, NU’s Board of Trustees raised $125,000 to finance a second building for the burgeoning Evanston Campus. They commissioned renowned Chicago architect Gurdon P. Randall, who designed the Victorian Gothic University Hall. Using the same type of Lemont limestone found in the Chicago Water Tower, the building opened to rave reviews in 1869. It is the oldest building on campus and continues to gain praise from modern architects.
“University Hall is the best building, both in terms of being a classic piece of architecture and the romance of the building, in that almost the entire university was occupied there,” Zsolnay said.
When the building opened, it contained classrooms, a library, a chapel, meeting rooms and dormitories. It is now home to offices for several academic departments.
From this auspicious architectural beginning, NU slowly expanded through the final decades of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, university officials realized new buildings on campus lacked a unified architectural distinctiveness.
A competition was held in 1911 for top architects to design a master plan for the Evanston Campus, but no plan was ever fully accepted, and an architectural vision remained elusive.
But in the early 1920s, the university appointed James Gamble Rogers as university architect. During his 21-year term, in which Deering Library and the Sorority Quads were developed, Rogers never produced a cohesive plan for the campus’s architecture. He did favor a gothic style, however.
Even without a concrete plan, Nayler said a precedent was set in the university’s early years.
“The campus is 150 years old, and in that time there were probably two defining themes that emerged in architecture,” he said. “Residential buildings were for the most part brick buildings, and academic buildings were for the most part limestone and precast concrete buildings.”
It is these models that continue to influence NU’s architecture.
A Campus with Potential
Since Facilities Management inherited the architectural duties of the university, a construction boom has erupted across the Evanston Campus.
Nine construction projects have been completed in the last five years, and five others remain in progress. These projects serve multiple purposes, from the 1997 renovation of Dyche Stadium into Ryan Field to the recent completion of new buildings such as Slivka Residence Hall.
“We’re picking architects that we think will improve the quality of the architecture on campus,” Nayler said. “We think that we’ve been successful, starting with the (Block Museum of Art renovatio
n) and the new buildings that are just completed or still underway.”
Nayler said he believes the newest additions to campus avoid the pitfalls of their predecessors.
“If you walk into the new (Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly), all the labs have windows that bring light into the building,” he said. “Everyone working there can see outside. It works well and is very flexible inside.”
Similarly, students appreciate the higher quality of new residence halls.
“I think Slivka and Kemper in general are really nice looking, especially compared to the dorms on South Campus,” said Minji Ro, a Weinberg freshman.
Although new buildings are constructed to fit the ever-changing needs of the university, Nayler said they must also fit the overall look of the campus. With renovations to older buildings such as the Crowe Hall expansion of Kresge Centennial Hall, adherence to old style is common.
“If you look, the new buildings are using this same style,” Nayler said. “The nanofabrication and (Materials and) Life Sciences buildings are precast concrete to fit in with what’s there for Annenberg (Hall) and other surrounding buildings.”
Academic buildings continue to use limestone and residence halls still are constructed in brick, Nayler said.
When University Hall was renovated in 1991, the interior floor plan of the building was completely overhauled. But the exterior look was preserved through cleaning and restoring the original limestone. A new door constructed for wheelchair access was made to match the gothic style of the building. In this way improvements are made to older buildings without compromising their original character.
Zsolnay said he thinks NU’s lack of a strict architectural code has been beneficial to developing the Evanston Campus.
“It was defined for many years that Northwestern’s master plan was a loose-leaf book rather than a hard-bound book,” he said. “As times progressed there was an opportunity to place those plans within the context of the whole rather than sticking rigidly to a set of defined goals.”
Even if the mosaic of architectural styles does not give the campus a rigid identity, Zsolnay said NU has a lot to offer an architect.
He said: “If the architecture of the past has not come to the greatest of achievement, I think it’s probably a combination of funding limits, program demands and perhaps less risk-taking than may be required for excellence in architecture. I think any architect who gets a commission to work on campus is fortunate.”
