1800 South First Street, Champaign

The Assembly Hall was designed by Max Abramovitz, a distinguished University of Illinois alumnus, with structural engineers Amman and Whitney.  Abramovitz also designed the Krannert Center for Performing Arts and Hillel Foundation at the University.  His firm was responsible for the Philharmonic Hall, the RCA Music Hall, the Time-Life building, and the Metropolitan Opera House.  Assembly Hall has been declared eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and was ranked #3 in importance by a 1994 Campus Historic Preservation Plan, behind only Altgeld Hall and the Auditorium Building (Foellinger).

The Assembly Hall was born out of a need for a single arena that could seat an entire University class.   The growing number of students had long since overwhelmed Foellinger’s seating capacity.  Assembly Hall opened on May 3, 1963 and continues to attract attention for its design and construction.  The four hundred foot diameter building–reaching its peak at 128 feet above the center floor–at the time of its construction was one of only two edge-supported domes in the world.

The $8.7M building was constructed on a truly massive scale in every respect.  During construction a special horizontal-wheeled tractor was borrowed from missile silo work to wind 614 miles of 1/4″ steel wire around the dome’s edge, circling the dome 2,467 times.  This placed more than 130,000 pounds per square inch of tension on the concrete, which caused it to squeeze inward and rise upwards, such that the 800,000 square feet of wooden scaffolding which had supported the concrete when it was poured was uncovered and removed.  The dome today is 2 inches less than it was when it was originally poured, due to this operation.  Even the concourse was built on an impressive scale, with 24 bridges leading onto the quarter mile concourse, which is lit by 24 skylights.

The third-largest Illinois arena after the United Center in Chicago and the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Assembly Hall has nearly 16,000 permanent seats.  An additional 2,000 temporary seats can be brought in.  The center floor can also be covered with 225 sectional panels to create a regulation basketball court, and a unique theater grid hovers 85 feet above the ground.

The home of University of Illinois women’s and men’s basketball teams, Assembly Hall also played host to such performers as The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, U2, and The Harlem Globetrotters and continues to host a variety of Illinois High School Association events.  It is the home of the state individual wrestling tournament since 1967.  From 1963 to 1995, Assembly Hall played host to the state finals of the boys’ basketball tournament.  From 1978 to 1990, it also hosted the IHSA girls’ basketball tournament.

As of April 2, 2008, the Assembly Hall was added to the annual top ten endangered Illinois historic places list as published by Landmarks Illinois, a non-profit historic preservation group.  The only other endangered athletic site on the list is the Cubs’ Wrigley Field in Chicago.

The University expects to complete a study this year to either replace the facility with a dedictated basketball arena or make major renovations to accomodate luxury suites and elevators.

[Wikipedia and UIUC Campus Tour]

Lincoln Hall was erected in honor of the President who signed the Morrill Land Grant Act into law, laying the foundations of what we know today as the University of Illinois.  In 1909, 100 years after his birth, the $250,000 building was approved by the state legislature, and it was ready for occupation by 1911.  The 4-story building was originally 230 feet long with twin 127-foot wings, and was expanded in subsequent 1929 and 1939 additions, which added the Lincoln Hall Theater.  Lincoln Hall was added to Landmarks Illinois‘ list of ten most endangered buildings in 2005.  Lincoln Hall is slated for a major renovation, subject to availability of state funding.  The UIUC has committed $9M in deferred maintenance funds for “stabilization” of Lincoln Hall.  This work includes fixing the historic building’s exterior.  [Daily Illini, 19Nov2008]

Lincoln Hall was dedicated in the Auditorium at 3 o’clock the afternoon of Wednesday, February 12, 1913.  Judge Simeon W. King, the only surviving pallbearer from Lincoln’s funeral, was also present at the ceremony.  The building was dedicated with the words:

It must not be forgotten that the facilities thus provided by the state are not primarily or fundamentally for the benefit of the young people who directly take advantage of them, but rather for the ultimate benefit of the great masses of the people who cannot come up to the  University and who for their participation in the benefits of these great opportunities provided by the commonwealth, must depend upon the good faith and the loyalty of those privileged to study here, in transmitting the blessings they have enjoyed to the communities whose interests they will serve.  Noblesse oblige.

The building features terra cotta adornments designed by Karl Schneider, artistic lead of the American Terra Cotta Company.  They feature various scenes and quotations from Lincoln’s life on its exterior, along with 69 wise old owls.  There are ten panels depicting various scenes from Lincoln’s life, including Lincoln Splitting Rails on the Banks of the Sangamon, The Down-River Trip and The Slave Auction (1831), The Lincoln-Douglas Debate (1865), and The First Inaugural Address.  Scenes date from 1830, 1840, 1849, 1858, 1861, 1863, and 1865.  There are also ten panels with quotations from Lincoln’s myriad speeches.  Each of these is flanked by dual portraits of men who were influential in Lincoln’s life:  Seward, Chase, Stanton, Welles, Grant, Farragut, Sumner, Adams, Greeley, Turner, Douglas, Trumbull, Yates, Oglesby, Logan, Lovejoy, Davis, Palmer, Koerner, and Medill.  The quotations themselves are: 

• Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature; opposition to it in his love of justice.  [Peoria, 16 Oct 1854]
• A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.  [Springfield, 16 Jun 1858]
• Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.  [Cooper Institute, 27 Feb 1860]
• I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.  [First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar 1861]
• We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.  [First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar 1861]
• My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or the destroy slavery.  [Letter to Greeley, 22 Aug 1862]
• In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.  [Message to Congress, 1 Dec 1862]
• The signs look better.  The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.  Thanks to the great Northwest for it.  [Letter to Conkling, 26 Aug 1864]
• That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. [Gettysburg, 19 Nov 1863]
• With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.  [Inaugural Address, 4 Mar 1865]

Five additional quotes adorn the building’s western face, with blank medallion faces:

•  I believe the declaration that all men are created equal is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest.  [Letter to James N. Brown, 18 Oct 1858]
• No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.  [Speech on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 16 Oct 1854]
• Free labor insists on universal education.  [Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, 30 Sep 1859]
• Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father and to tear the charter of his own and his children’s liberty.  [Address to Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, 27 Jan 1838]
• Let none falter who thinks he is right.   [Speech to Subtreasury, 26 Dec 1839]

A brass plaque carrying the text of the Gettysburg Address was originally embedded in the center of the marble floor, but was subsequently removed and mounted on the wall after too many students trod upon it.

The classes of 1918 and 1919 dedicated a memorial courtyard on their 50th anniversary in the interior of Lincoln Hall in honor of those University of Illinois students who died in the First World War.
 
On October 22, 1979, Lincoln’s bust in the foyer was stolen and relocated to a tree stump on the 8th hole of the Florida Avenue University Golf Course.  A note delivered to the Daily Illini spoke on behalf of the former President, saying “Went out for a breath of fresh air.  I’ll be back by the end of the week”, but a phone call to the police shortly thereafter led to his safe return.

Source:  UIUC Campus Tour

1403 West Lorado Taft Drive, Urbana
The Mumford House was built in 1870 as a model farmer’s home.  It was the residence for a host of University fathers of agriculture and is the University’s oldest building.  Its Victorian Gothic structure is often associated with John Milton Gregory, the school’s first regent, who had a significant role in shaping the school’s academic programs.  Thomas J. Burrill, who joined the University upon its founding in 1868, was the house’s first occupant.  The home was named for the late Herbert W. Mumford, a former dean of the UI’s College of Agriculture, who became a nationally known farm marketing expert.  Mumford House was designed by Andrew Jackson Downing and built by J.S. Searfoss.  The Mumford House was listed on Landmark Illinois’ list of ten most endangered buildings in 2006.  Listed on the NRHP on October 31, 1989 for significance in Education and Architecture (#89001728).

Champaign

Champaign

1005 South Sixth Street, Champaign