The Architect's Newspaper on The City as Campus

A review of Sharon Haar's book on urbanism and higher education in Chicago.

Haar_City coverIt is the right time to read architect and historian Sharon Haar’s book on the rich, fraught relationship of universities and the cities they live in. We are in one of the great eras of university expansion. Whether it is the new Yale in Singapore, New York University in its own backyard, or the burgeoning institutions in China, the university is as close to the heart of our current cultural and economic aspirations as it has ever been and the buildings are there to prove it. As financial analysts put it about the economy, a correction is possible—the ranks of dissatisfied, underemployed university graduates are legion across continents. Yet short of a new, harsher recession, the build program will go on, the better for select universities to stand out in a crowded field.

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Published in: The Architect's Newspaper
By: Ray Gastil