Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Nevins) [PAGE 238]

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220 UNIVEESITY AFTER IT POUND ITSELF and economy at the expense of beauty. With such attractive if heterogeneous buildings upon its campus as the Library, Agricultural Building, and Auditorium, all the work of alumni, it preferred to make its own slow progress towards a distinctive architecture. But it proved impossible to escape the law or to have it modified, and after some delay the Trustees were forced to ask State Architect Zimmerman to consult with the President and send plans as soon as possible. Happily for the University, both buildings were erected only after the faculties concerned had fully expressed their ideas; and the Physics Building in particular embodied an expert solicitude for solidity and the best use of light. As it neared completion, the authorities forced the removal of the trans-campus line of the local street railway, then running through Green Street, the vibration from which would have affected delicate instruments, to the present location to the south. Nettled by the tardiness with which provision was made for construction, early in 1909 the Trustees adopted a report setting forth the urgent need for no less than twelve new buildings, totaling $3,250,000. These included an administration building, an addition to University Hall, an armory, an addition to the Library, agricultural buildings reaching an aggregate of $750,000, a building for music, art, and architecture, an enlargement of the Engineering Building, a museum, a testing laboratory, a transportation building, and housing for the medical college to cost $500,000. For the time, however, only four main structures were requested—an administration building, an armory, the addition to University Hall, and the addition to the Library—with some smaller items for the college of agriculture. Of these was granted only the new Uni-