In 1970, the cerebral attitude that pervaded the U. of C. reached a symbolic crest with the opening of its Joseph Regenstein Library, a brutalist building that looked like a fortress made of mammoth concrete books—and that occupied the former site of the school’s football stadium, Amos Alonzo Stagg Field, which had been demolished in 1957. The new library, says Donald Laackman, became the place where “you could always find your friends on a Friday night.