Brutalism in Chicago

Chicago is known for steel and glass, but its universities and public agencies built a substantial concrete counter-tradition in the 1960s and 70s. Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed the University of Illinois Chicago campus around his field theory geometry, producing interlocking concrete buildings like the Behavioral Sciences Building. Bertrand Goldberg, best known for Marina City, pushed curved concrete further in the Raymond Hillard Homes and the cloverleaf bed towers of Prentice Women's Hospital, a structural landmark demolished in 2014 despite an international preservation campaign.

The University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus added its own cluster of concrete science buildings, including the Henry Hinds Laboratory and the Cummings Life Science Center by I. W. Colburn. Downtown, Harry Weese's triangular Metropolitan Correctional Center turned a federal jail into an unmistakable slice of the Loop skyline.