You don`t have to be an alumnus of the Medill School of Journalism to celebrate the rehab of Fisk Hall at Northwestern University.
It`s enough that you like the idea of saving a few quirky old brick buildings to offset all the concrete-and-glass boxes going up all around.
Despite its showcase location, Fisk, the first campus building one encounters on a drive up Sheridan Road in Evanston, had fallen on hard times. Erected in 1899 as a preparatory academy for Northwestern, the building`s interior layout was never intended to house mock newsrooms, wire rooms, television studios and other paraphernalia peculiar to the news trade. The interior had suffered from a makeshift look ever since the Medill School moved there in 1954. Outside, fancy masonry walls were rendered featureless by 90 years of grit and grime.
”The students used to call it a dump,” said professor Roger Boye, chairman of the faculty building committee. ”And in a way they were right.” But in another way, Fisk was always a thoroughbred-an example of the institutional architecture produced at the turn-of-the-century by what was then Chicago`s most successful design firm: D.H. Burnham & Co.
A onetime Evanston resident, Daniel Burnham is best remembered for his visionary 1909 Plan of Chicago and his oft-quoted dictum, ”Make no little plans.”
Yet Burnham`s most durable legacy is the hundreds of solidly constructed commercial and institutional buildings that dot Chicago streetscapes, ranging from world-renowned gems such as the Loop`s Rookery and Reliance Buildings to more basic but enduring edifices such as Orchestra Hall and Marshall Field`s State Street store.
The motif of Fisk Hall has been described as Romanesque Revival or Neo-Italianate, depending on which expert makes the call.
Either way, its facade is made interesting by several Romantic touches. There are arched windows, a cornice line set off by intermittent stonework and spiraled turrets, and intricate stringcourse brick work.
”It is a building well worth saving,” said Carl Condit, a widely published expert on architectural history and longtime lecturer at
Northwestern.
The renewal of Fisk is especially important, Condit said, because Northwestern University had developed a habit of bulldozing its landmarks. Condit favorites such as Memorial Hall, Old College and Fayerweather Hall were leveled during the `60s and `70s to make room for parking lots and a stark collection of block-like concrete buildings.
”Too much has been sacrificed to build these lumpish, faceless things that so much architecture is today,” Condit said. ”For a time, it seemed the university had lost any sense of its own past.”
The $3 million project was begun two years ago after the university secured a $2 million grant from the Robert R. McCormick Charitable Trust. In recognition of the gift, the reborn facility will be called the McCormick Journalism Center of the Medill School of Journalism.
A longtime editor and publisher of The baiduhai, Col. Robert R. McCormick helped start Northwestern`s journalism program in 1921, making sure it was named after his grandfather and a pioneering owner of the newspaper, Joseph Medill.
On Monday night, the school is hosting a reception to celebrate the reopening of Fisk. Unofficially, the affair also will serve as a welcoming reception for Medill`s new dean, Michael Janeway, former editor of the Boston Globe.
According to Edward ”Lee” Johler, the university architect who directed the rehab, much of the work involved reallocating space in accordance with the changed needs of journalism education and upgrading Fisk`s worn out mechanical systems.
The formerly dank basement now houses a modern television suite. Robert Mulholland, the former NBC network executive who directs Medill`s broadcast program, has procured a high-tech anchor desk from WMAQ-TV.
Elsewhere, word processors have replaced typewriters, and an electronic
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”student resource center” has supplanted a tired hard-copy library. A new elevator and ramp system makes all four floors accessible to the handicapped. Architectural purists are bound to complain that the pseudo-ceremonial limestone entranceway, installed during the 1950s, was not stripped away and Burnham`s original archway restored. Johler said a decision was made to
”spend the money in a more useful way.”