Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1924 [PAGE 37]

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34

board of trustees

[September 22,

C A M P U S PLAN DEVELOPMENT (22) Suggestions by Architect C. A. Piatt, concerning the development of the Campus Plan. September 20, 1922 President David Kinley, 355 Administration Building M y D e a r D r . Kinley: I have received from M r . Charles A. Piatt a copy of his letter of September 12th to M r . Abbott with reference to his progress on our campus plan. I a m enclosing M r . Piatt's letter and the accompanying drawing to which it refers. In developing this plan, Mr. Piatt has accepted the campus meridian as laid out by Mr. Olmstead in 1906 and the subdivision into general areas recommended by the 1912 Commission. The parade ground remains unchanged together with the avenues to the north and south of it, but the axis of the east and west mall has been moved south twenty feet, throwing it slightly off the axis of the parade ground. M r . Piatt's great contribution has been the working out of the area extending eastward from Sixth Street to Mathews Avenue and from the Auditorium southward to the Cemetery. The proposed buildings within this area cover about twenty-five per cent of the ground area, but are so distributed as to avoid monotony and to introduce the greatest possible variety into the avenues separating the buildings and to reduce the roadways to the minimum. You will note from the blue print that there are no roadways extending north and south between Goodwin Avenue and Sixth Street. In order to make the plan comprehensive, M r . Piatt has had to show a number of details which he has not sufficiently studied and upon which he is not yet ready to make recommendations, but he does request that the west walk be laid out and planted, and that Goodwin Avenue be extended through into the campus. I should also like to see the east walk opened up and planted as far as possible, tho the north end can not be laid out now because of interference with the Morrow Experimental Plots. I think for the present, w e need only extend Goodwin Avenue to the avenue on the south border of the Agricultural plots rather than to the avenue in front of the greenhouses as he suggests. While there are advantages in closing Mathews Avenue, I hardly think w e are ready to act upon that recommendation at this time. I hope that M r . Piatt's specific recommendations m a y receive immediate consideration and that he will be instructed to make further studies and recommendations. If present action be limited to the specific recommendations made by M r , Piatt, the closing of Burrill Avenue need not be settled at this time, but I a m heartily in favor of paving the way so that it can be accomplished in the future if necessary. Very truly yours, James M. White Supervising Architect September 12, 1922 My Dear Mr. Abbott: I expect to go abroad for a short trip, leaving here this week and returning about the 15th of November. As questions m a y arise during m y absence on which you might wish m y opinion, I have prepared a plan at a scale of 100 feet to the inch showing the main structure of the plan of the south campus which seems practically assured by decisions made by the Board to date. I send you under other cover a copy of this plan. Roads, Walks and Tries: As the buildings will come slowly in the development of the south campus I hope that the main streets and walks m a y be built and trees planted as soon as possible and that the tree planting expecially be carried out wherever the grading can be adjusted to the new plan in order to place the trees where they should be in relation to the scheme. I would particularly like to see the trees on the walk which I have