Architecture: By the Cloverleaf

The classic university campus is a grouping of quaint Gothic or red brick Georgian buildings adrift on a rolling meadow of greensward. But the exploding college population of the U.S. demands less casual and rustic solutions. In the Chicago metropolitan area alone, there are 150,000 college students. By 1980, estimates the University of Illinois, there will be 568,000 questing applicants. To meet this need, the university desperately needed a new campus, one that would be big, modern and accessible to city dwellers.

The university rejected a pasture on the city's outskirts, fought for and got 106 downtown acres where once...