CHAPTER 1

IDEAS ANDARCHITECTURE

The University of Chicago originated not as a small college as did most universitiesin the East, but rather with the full-blown ambition of a major university—onethat was unique in reflecting from its beginnings the American ideals of opennessand accessibility based on merit rather than social position. Just as Chicago is thegreat American city, so the University of Chicago is the great American university.

—ROBERT J. ZIMMER

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO'S LEAFY, sprawling campus in Hyde Parkis one of the world's great intellectual destinations, and its complexity and diversity arevividly reflected in its architecture. The campus in many respects appears venerable andrich with tradition, and in other ways it seems fresh and mutable as a new idea.

Today, the original quadrangles remain as the founders intended, with gardenssurrounded by limestone buildings that feel as ancient as the hills. Yet the courtyards,towers, gates, and gargoyles engage in continuous dialogue with more modern neighbors,the newest among them transparent, seemingly weightless, and gleaming with light.Together the buildings reinforce the university's message that it honors the past evenas it gazes into the future.

Architecture has been central to the university's identity since its founding in 1890.By then Chicago had already earned a reputation for innovative architecture. The city'searly architects included those collectively known as the Chicago School, famous forcreating the modern skyscraper. In the shadow of the nascent university, Chicago hostedthe 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and created the grandiose White City, America'sfirst major example of City Beautiful urban planning. These and other achievements sethigh standards for architecture on the University of Chicago campus.

The university has long shown its desire to meet if not exceed those expectations.In the beginning, the founders debated the merits of the chosen site, not just where it waslocated but how it should be configured. They considered the architectural styles thenin vogue—Classical, Romanesque, Gothic. They remained vigilant in guiding the earlycampus design, and they were generous with their money and their personal engagement.The founders believed that the architecture of Chicago's university should bespeak aninstitution that exuded ambition and vision.

CHICAGO'S RENAISSANCE SPIRIT

The university's aspirations were fueled by the times. When the institution was founded,the United States was completing its conquest of the frontier, mastering industrialization,and believing fervently in manifest destiny. Chicago, as a new city of immense importance,served as more than a major hub and staging ground for commerce. It became a symbolof the nation's future. Chicago's wealth outpaced its rapid population growth, and itsself-regard often outpaced its wealth. In the early twentieth century, novelist TheodoreDreiser described Chicago as the "Florence of the West ... a hobo among cities, withthe grip of Caesar in its mind." City fathers treated cultural development with the sameentrepreneurial drive that they applied to business concerns, and the university benefitedfrom this thoroughgoing spirit.

Like the notion of manifest destiny, Chicago's greatness was considered a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even the Great Chicago Fire became less a setback and more anopportunity to reclaim open spaces. In the fire's wake, the city attracted a wave ofarchitects and builders willing and able to reconceive Chicago. "The flames swept awayforever the greater number of monstrous libels on artistic house-building," declared alocal publication at the time.

Sensing this as a rare moment, the architects who would make Chicago famousmostly came from elsewhere for the chance to build as no place had been built before.Henry Ives Cobb, William LeBaron Jenney, John Wellborn Root, Louis Sullivan, andFrank Lloyd Wright migrated here looking for ways to engage in new ideas and torealize high ambitions.

Downtown, the Loop prospered as steel-frame structures scraped the sky, dazzlingthe world with their lofty heights as well as their returns on investment. Surroundingareas prospered too, as railroads collaborated with real estate interests to develop outlyingneighborhoods and communities. Indeed, when the university's founders chose HydePark, it was a marshy, largely undeveloped southern outpost. But it had rail service and thepromise of an active future, so acres of land were drained and reclaimed. To the foundersof the university, the less-than-bucolic property around 57th Street represented a slate atleast as clean as that provided by the fire.

A CITY'S UNBRIDLED AMBITION

The earliest proponents of the University of Chicago were churchmen who wantedto expand the Baptist Union Theological Seminary. The church organization showed aninterest in establishing "a great college, ultimately to be a University, in Chicago," wroteFrederick T. Gates, a high-ranking Baptist clergyman from Minneapolis. "Betweenthe Allegheny and the Rocky Mountains there is not to be found another city in whichsuch an institution as we need could ... achieve wide influence or retain supremacyamong us."

The idea attracted the attention of another Baptist: John D. Rockefeller, a manwho knew something of big plans. Rockefeller required some convincing, but ultimatelyhe pledged $600,000, an amount that would swell over time to $37 million. A wealth ofcorrespondence ensued, debating what kind of an institution there should be and how itmight address the problems of the growing metropolis, become a laboratory for researchacross disciplines, and bring the uplifting influence of a large university to a city that didnot have one within its limits.

Rockefeller's interest, indeed his strength, lay in the realm of brick and mortar, andhe exhorted the founders not to think small. "Do not on account of scarcity of money failto do the right thing in...