University of Illinois at Chicago - Campus

Campus

UIC is composed of three campuses supporting more than 28,000 students and 2,400 faculty members and staff. These campuses cover 311 acres (125.9 ha) in the Little Italy and the University Village section of Chicago.

The East Campus was designed in the brutalist style by Walter Netsch. The plan included second-story walkways that connected all of the buildings. Some of the later buildings in Netsch's design were not rectilinear (the Behavioral Sciences Building) and even irregularly shaped (Science and Engineering South, and the never-completed Art & Architecture building). These demonstrated his idea of "field theory:" designs which used squares and rotations of squares superimposed on one another. While the buildings are largely intact, the walkways were taken down in phases during the early 1990s to make the campus more welcoming. Considerable effort has been expended to modify the original Netsch campus plan to create the feel of a traditional college campus. For example, the area in front of the main administration building, University Hall, has been the site of several renovations in the last decade; and, the UIC Pavilion (a sports arena) was added in 1982.

The East Campus is located on the Near West Side, just south of Greektown and a 15-minute walk from downtown Chicago. The juxtaposition of campus and commercial density was a direct result of large-scale urban renewal led by Mayor Richard J. Daley. The proximity to downtown and public transit tends to attract students who want to experience life in a large city but have a typical college campus. Between East and West Campuses is Little Italy.

The West Campus is much older and includes some buildings built in the collegiate gothic style. The colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Dentistry, Applied Health Sciences and Public Health, as well as the Library of the Health Sciences are all located on the West Campus. The West Campus is in the heart of the Illinois Medical District where the University of Illinois Medical Center is located.

South Campus is in the University Village neighborhood, formerly the Maxwell Street area. There are no strictly educational buildings here; South Campus is composed of residence halls, athletic facilities, and a large presentation building called the UIC Forum. Since the East Campus was opened in 1965 several large-scale developments creating thousands of new residences have been built in the Taylor Street area. Development of The South Campus in the early 2000s included a rapid increase in new housing units.

The Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line, part of the Chicago 'L', runs through the median of the Eisenhower Expressway along the north side of the campus. Three Blue Line stations are close to the university: UIC-Halsted, Racine, and Illinois Medical District. The Pink Line serves UIC's west campus on Polk Street and runs directly to Ogilvie Transportation Center.