Indiana University Bloomington - Campus - Facilities and Architecture

Facilities and Architecture

Many of the campus's buildings, especially the older central buildings, are made from Indiana limestone quarried locally. The Works Progress Administration built much of the campus's core during the Great Depression. Many of the campus's buildings were built and most of its land acquired during the 1950s and 1960s, when first soldiers attending under the GI Bill and then the baby boom swelled the university's enrollment from 5,403 in 1940 to 30,368 in 1970. Some buildings on campus underwent similar expansion. As additions were constructed by building onto the outside of existing buildings, exterior surfaces were incorporated into their new interiors, making this expansion clearly visible in the affected buildings' architecture. The Chemistry and Biology buildings serve as examples, where two of the interior walls of the latter's library are clearly constructed as limestone exteriors. The Bryan House is the traditional on-campus home of the university president.

The 1979 movie Breaking Away was filmed on location in Bloomington and the IU campus. It also featured a reenactment of the annual Little 500 bicycle race. The IU campus also has trails that many use for biking and running. The trails in Bloomington and nearby areas total nearly 1,200 miles (1,900 km).