The Rebecca Crown Center was initially built in 1968 as a new administrative building for Northwestern. The new building erected firstly out of necessity as most of Northwestern’s administrative offices were spread out amongst the university’s campus and this new location would centralize their offices. The center features a strong concrete, symmetrical, and geometric brutalist theme with a clock tower that has an engraved seal of Northwestern on its base. 

          The building itself is not the most beautiful on campus. It has a fortress-like look that minimizes the lighting from narrow windows. Some found this building’s theme “fitting for the turmoil of the late 1960s and early ’70s.” One school article briefly described the center’s buildings in a caption as feeling particularly cold, especially in the wintertime. Despite these critiques and general reception on the look of the building, the function of the center seemed to be more unanimously positive. Before its construction, administrative offices were spread all around the campus. The center is now the home of many if not all Northwestern administrative offices and this increase in organization of the campus design was greatly appreciated by administrative staff. Today it serves this same purpose and most of its acknowledgment is received regarding its function rather than its beauty. Many Northwestern students have no need to visit these offices on a day to day basis and as such its existence is more or less oblivious to the opinions of students. If anything, it may just serve more like a shortcut to the nearby downtown Evanston.