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The University Library, designed by Walter Netsch. Photo by praetis on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons. |
You might not expect a conversation about Northwestern’s library and architect Walter Netsch to turn into potty talk. But it turns out that a common complaint about Netsch’s structures is the lack of potties.
Walter Netsch, a Chicago-born architect, designed several structures for NU’s Evanston campus, including the Rebecca Crown Center, the science and engineering library, the Frances Searle Building, the Regenstein Hall of Music and the University Library. Netsch’s buildings are some of the most visible on campus — and also some of the most controversial.
To a visitor, the library might seem like a monstrous, gray maze. Step into the center of the circular tower rooms and you’re surrounded by bookshelves, with no exit in sight. But there’s a clue: The aisle with solid carpeting leads out of the labyrinth.
Geoff Morse, a reference librarian who has worked in the library for two years, said that although navigating the circular rooms takes some practice, the tower system works well overall. But he says Netsch forgot a more basic concern.
“People always ask where the restrooms are,” Morse said. “Restrooms are an important part of a building and I wish they were bigger, or there were a few more. I know it sounds silly, but it’s just nuts and bolts.”
For students, navigating the library is an art they’ll learn (or avoid entirely) over four years at college. At the Frances Searle Building, strangers come in every day for health services. Try finding a washroom. You might think you’re on a treasure hunt following clues plastered all over the walls.
Ellen Dunleavy, a receptionist who has worked in the building for five years, said the washroom situation at Searle was always bad, but now that Northwestern is renovating the first-floor toilets, the situation is even worse.
“I feel like I’m gone for half an hour every time I go to the bathroom,” she said.
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The Frances Searle building, which holds classrooms, administration and health clinics. Photo by Spencer Kornhaber / North by Northwestern. |
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Special maps are posted around Searle showing where the usable bathrooms are. Photo by Spencer Kornhaber / North by Northwestern. |
Dunleavy said nobody can find their way around Searle. Terrible acoustics in the main atrium space make hearing difficult, and exposed limestone inside of the building makes people ask when the construction will be finished. She said that rather than try to improve the building, they might as well just start over.
“We have clinics here, so there are elderly people coming in to have their hearing tested, people with small children, people who have had strokes… they’re already confused and stressed out, and they come in Searle and are completely lost,” Dunleavy said.
Netsch made a name for himself in the 1950s when he designed the U.S. Air Force Academy, which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2004. His signature architectural style, called Field Theory, involved rotating simple squares into geometric forms, and came at a time when the extremely minimal, simplistic “skin and bones” architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe dominated American architecture. Netsch was seen as a maverick by his colleagues who drew within the so-called Miesian Box.
Russ Clement, bibliographer for art and art history at Northwestern, is working on a book about the 87-year-old Netsch, slated to come out early next year.
“A lot of people talk about what an intimidating character Netsch was,” Clement said. “He was something like 6′4″ and 160 pounds, so he must have been very intense. I’ll talk to people and they’ll tell me that he was just a terror.”
Physically, some of Netsch’s structures are as intimidating as their creator. Walter Netsch said the best thing he built in his career was the Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, a building Northwestern razed in 1995. The observatory, a graceful but colossal wooden mammoth, was designated as outstanding in its class by the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Northwestern decided not to invest the roughly $1 million necessary to renovate the crumbling building, as light pollution from developments along the northern skyline had reduced visibility.
“When they decided to take it down, I warned them that it was not a post and beam structure, and that it would come down with difficulty,” Netsch said. “I told them they’d have to separate parts, and they didn’t do that.”
Tearing down Netsch’s favorite building failed several times. On Wednesday, Sept. 13, 1995, explosive experts tried dynamite. Lindheimer tilted, but did not fall. The next day, the demolition company tied the observatory to tow trucks with one-inch steel cables. Several cables snapped and the trucks rolled backwards. Lindheimer didn’t budge. Late that night, workers began arc welding to cut the building’s structural tubes and the building tipped, as if humoring NU. Finally, on Friday, they took Netsch’s advice. They brought in cranes and cut the award-winning observatory apart piece by piece.
“It made headlines and news films as it lay there sagging,” Netsch said. “It was quite a lesson in the means of structural form.”
But not all of Walter Netsch’s structures are imposing, innavigable and potty-less. Some are lovely, innavigable and potty-less. Netsch helped design Northwestern’s lakefill in the early 1960s. So far, no fish have complained.