Building Ideas: An Architectural Guide to the University of Chicago

 Many books have been written about the University of Chicago over its 120-year history, but most of them focus on the intellectual environment, favoring its great thinkers and their many breakthroughs. Yet for the students and scholars who live and work here, the physical university—its stately buildings and beautiful grounds—forms an important part of its character.

Building Ideas: An Architectural Guide to the University of Chicago  explores the environment that has supported more than a century of exceptional thinkers. This photographic guide traces the evolution of campus architecture from the university’s founding in 1890 to its plans for the twenty-first century.


When William Rainey Harper, the university’s first president, and the trustees decided to build a set of Gothic quadrangles, they 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.

Full of panoramic photographs and exquisite details, Building Ideas features the work of architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ives Cobb, Holabird & Roche, Eero Saarinen, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Netsch, Ricardo Legorreta, Rafael Viñoly, César Pelli, Helmut Jahn, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The guide also includes guest commentaries by prominent architects and other notable public figures. It is the perfect collection for Chicago alumni and students, Hyde Park residents and visitors, and anyone inspired by the institutional ideas and aspirations of architecture.

Jay Pridmore is the author or coauthor of many books, including Chicago Architecture and Design, University of Chicago: The Campus Guide, Shanghai: The Architecture of China’s Great Urban Center, and The American Bicycle. He has worked as a journalist in Chicago and has written extensively about architecture. 

Tom Rossiter is an architectural and nature photographer and filmmaker as well as a registered architect and fellow in the American Institute of Architects. He was a founding member of Mcclier, worked as a senior designer for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and interned with Charles and Ray Eames. Rossiter’s work has been nationally commissioned by leading architects and institutions. His images have been exhibited in solo shows throughout Chicago.