<p>This library looks ridiculous. I don’t know what they were thinking. I think the Tribune’s critic sums it up especially well:</p>
<p>"But the design could look bizarrely out of place, and not just because of its proximity to the U. of C.’s Cobb Gate, a passageway festooned with neo-Gothic grotesques.</p>
<p>The real trouble is the way the library departs from the university’s characteristic planning, which consists of walled-in courtyards: places of extraordinary dignity and repose. Regenstein broke that pattern in 1970 with its limestone-faced Brutalism. Now the library’s Jetson futurism appears poised to repeat the same mistake.</p>
<p>Why must every building strive to be an icon? Even if the new library turns out to be a wonderful place to read, you have to wonder: Will this design become a part of a greater whole or just another self-indulgent object?"</p>
<p>-Blair Kamin</p>