ARCHITECTUAL DESIGN IN SUPPORT OF THINKING

Jay Pridmore, Tom Rossiter (Photography), & Robert J. Zimmer (Foreword), Building Ideas: An Architectural Guide to the University of Chicago (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2013) ("From the book's jacket: "When William Rainey Harper, the university's first president, decided to build a set of Gothic quadrangles at the heart of campus, he created a visual link to European precursors and made a bold statement about the future of higher education in the United States. Since then the university has regularly commissioned forward-thinking architects to design buildings that expand--or explode--traditional ideals while redefining the contemporary campus." "Building Ideas: An Architectural Guide to the University of Chicago explores the environment that has supported more than a century of exceptional thinkers." From the "Foreword": 'The architecture of the University of Chicago inspires, encourages, and supports the pursuit of knowledge in all its forms, sustaining an innovative, creative,and fearless scholarly community whose impact reaches well beyond the university's." Id. at xx. When one walks onto a university campus, one should be taken, if not overwhelmed, with a sense that important work is being done there. That the university is a special place. One gets that sense on entering the campus of the University of Chicago.  One might not like particular buildings, yet one senses that great things are being thought and done within those buildings.).