CHICAGO | UIC University Hall | 338 FT | 28 FLOORS | 1965

[Steely Dan]

carried over from the highrise projects thread:

Originally Posted by The Pimp

God University Hall at UIC sucks!

it would not be possible for me to disagree with you more strongly.

it's one of the absolute best works of brutalism in the city. so freaking powerful.


University of Illinois - Chicago - University Hall by Mark Susina, on Flickr

[The Pimp]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

it would not be possible to disgree with you more strongly.

it's one of the absolute best works of brutalism in the city.

Steely, I have always appreciated your comments and dedication to this site. However, UH is a complete abomination.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The Pimp

Steely, I have always appreciated your comments and dedication to this site. However, UH is a complete abomination.

Pimp, i don't know you well enough to have any sort of opinion of you as a person. However, UH is one of the best works of brutalism in the city; a complete treasure piece of pure architectural magic.

[wierdaaron]

Life is weird sometimes.

[The Pimp]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Pimp, i don't know enough about you to have any sort of opinion of you. However, UH, is one of the best works of brutalism in the city; a treasure piece of pure architectural magic.

I agree with you that brutalism has its place in our society. Maybe it belongs in the realm of uninhabited works of art. As a former UIC med student back in the early 80's, I found the UH and other buildings at UIC cold and depressing. I respect your opinion more than most on this site. However, I will agree to disagree.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The Pimp

As a former UIC med student back in the early 80's, I found the UH and other buildings at UIC cold and depressing..

UIC has lots of bad buildings.

University Hall isn't one of them.




and LOL @ weirdaaaron!

[Near North Resident]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

it would not be possible for me to disagree with you more strongly.

it's one of the absolute best works of brutalism in the city. so freaking powerful.


University of Illinois - Chicago - University Hall by Mark Susina, on Flickr

so ugly it looks like its under construction still!

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

I love this building hardcore. It pains me that the university removed some of the more distinctive features of his masterplan.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

Life is weird sometimes.

This is really meta.

[Tom Servo]

wow, so many wrong opinions it's hard to think.

one of the best buildings in chicago.

[wierdaaron]

Saying it's the best Brutalist is like saying the HW library is the best PoMo. If you don't like the style itself, you won't like the building.

Brutalism seems yucky to me because it seems like the past screaming out to us about how awful the world was at the time. Since I didn't live in the era where it seemed appropriate, the only context I can see it from is one that's already moved on from it. I understand that it's way more meaningful for some people, and that's valid.

The fact that this thing has *windows* elevates it above most brutalist examples in my book.

[chrisvfr800i]

Originally Posted by The Pimp

Steely, I have always appreciated your comments and dedication to this site. However, UH is a complete abomination.

I have a distinct memory of many years ago sitting in a classroom @ UIC not far from UH, taking an art history class. A student asked how a particularly silly thing could be considered a work of art. The professor responded:

"If an artist takes a shit on the floor and calls it art....it's art."

It makes me wonder what Walter Netsch had for breakfast the day he came up with UH and most of the UIC campus, because when I was there, it was a dreadful place.

[Chicago Shawn]

University Hall and SEO are fantastic, absolutely among the best brutalist high-rises anywhere. Its sad that UIC has been renovating the campus in a way that strips out any of the original character. At some point when this style has greater public appreciation, we will ask ourselves why more buildings weren't saved. Keep in mind, it was the same mentality of "it's not worth saving" that was behind demolitions of beautiful Victorian houses, early skyscraper masterpieces and whole neighborhoods.


Brutalism is the modern art of architecture, not everyone will understand it, but those who do shall be rewarded.

Sadly, UIC with their ongoing campus updates may demolish UH in the not too distant future. It has been discussed in the crafting of the campus master plan.

[untitledreality]

Love UH. Hate UIC.

Can we just move UH into the South Loop and bulldoze the rest of UICs campus? Please?

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

Love UH. Hate UIC.

Can we just move UH into the South Loop and bulldoze the rest of UICs campus? Please?

like

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

Saying it's the best Brutalist is like saying the HW library is the best PoMo. If you don't like the style itself, you won't like the building.

Not at all. I don't care much for PoMo, especially when it got too avant-garde... the Stanley Tigermans, Michael Graves and Robert Venturis of the world make me shudder.

I love Harold Washington Library, at least superficially. Real thick masonry walls, copper trim, giant hand-wrought sconces, rooftop sculpture, and all those beautiful little study carrels. Basically Hammond Beeby and Babka blew all their budget to make the facade and outer 15' of the building mimic an honest-to-god Classical building, everything inside that is just a super-basic set of floors with library stacks. Many aspects of the building have the same Classical gravitas you find at the NYPL in Bryant Park or the Boston Library at Copley Square, which is not something you can say for all the glitzy starchitect-designed central libraries in the past few decades.

If the choice was presented, I would love to have gotten Lou Kahn's Exeter Library blown up to big-city scale, but but that wasn't even an option in the competition.

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I love Harold Washington Library, at least superficially. Real thick masonry walls, copper trim, giant hand-wrought sconces, rooftop sculpture, and all those beautiful little study carrels. Basically Hammond Beeby and Babka blew all their budget to make the facade and outer 15' of the building mimic an honest-to-god Classical building, everything inside that is just a super-basic set of floors with library stacks. Many aspects of the building have the same Classical gravitas you find at the NYPL in Bryant Park or the Boston Library at Copley Square, which is not something you can say for all the glitzy starchitect-designed central libraries in the past few decades.

If the choice was presented, I would love to have gotten Lou Kahn's Exeter Library blown up to big-city scale, but but that wasn't even an option in the competition.

Bro, superficially or any other way you wanna look at it, HWL sucks balls. One of the worst buildings in the Loop. Top 5, for sure.

[ardecila]

[RLS_rls]

Total beast/beauty. Campus Brutalism is always cool, way more interactive than corporate brutalism. Some nice examples here at UofM, but nothing close to that massive or (from the looks of it) isolated.

[The Pimp]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

wow, so many wrong opinions it's hard to think.

one of the best buildings in chicago.

Opinions are like a holes. Everyone's got one. UH is functionally a dump. Any UIC student can attest to that fact.