This building and two others designed by Walter Netsch on the University of Iowa campus are supposedly an application of a design concept that was in fashion in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was labeled “Field Theory,” which entailed, as Netsch commented, “an ordering device, a way of looking at things.” 36 This way of looking at things was to impose a geometric pattern, an “environmental module,” on the building. In the Bowen Science Building Netsch played a fascinating game with superimposing rotating squares against octagonal shapes. The horizontal and vertical columns and their accompanying lintels are openly revealed, and brick-framed, deeply set windows and doors are used as infills.