Chicago, day 5, Northwestern University

We caught the train back to Michael's apartment and picked up the car to drive to the university campus. Michael is nearly at the end of his PhD thesis in history at Northwestern and needed to go in to the department to attend a lecture.
Northwestern University was built in Evanston, beautifully placed next to Lake Michigan, around 12 miles north of Chicago. It was founded in 1851 by John Evans and the oldest building still standing is University Hall (1869).  In 1873 the Evanston College for Ladies merged with the university, although Northwestern first admitted women students in 1869. The medical school and the law school are based in Chicago itself.
The campus is an airy place with wide roads, trees and green space. Before he went in for his lecture Mike showed us the Alice Millar Chapel, built in 1962 with the most wonderful stained glass windows, designed by Belgium born Benoit Gilsoul. Their colours depict stories and allegories. The outside of the church is very conventional but the inside is very plain and contemporary to allow the glass to shine out.




Nearly opposite the church is the University Hall building and Michael's department.




Michael went off to do his duty and Anne and I wandered down to the lakeshore where the more modern campus lies. The first picture is the student union building, where we had a cup of tea, naturally.








When Michael had finished he showed us round his department which had rather a nice staircase. It was getting dark outside and the sun was setting over the lake. The union building unfortunately had a stack of crates in front of it. The remains of an ice skating rink. It was only February but it had been too warm to keep the ice solid.













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