Mid-Continent Modern: The Champaign School of Mid-Century Architecture

This talk draws from Mid-Continent Modern: The Champaign School of Mid-Century Architecture, a photographic and historical study of modernist architecture in Champaign-Urbana from the postwar period through the 1990s. Rather than treating these buildings as isolated design objects, the talk situates them within local social history — the architects who worked here, the institutions that supported them, and the everyday lives shaped by these spaces. Through photographs, plans, and stories, the talk explores how a distinctly Midwestern modernism emerged: pragmatic, restrained, and deeply connected to landscape, community, and use. It also considers why these buildings matter today, and what it means to document and preserve recent architectural history before it quietly disappears.