Mies’ Legacy at Illinois Institute of Technology and Beyond

Mies-Designed Buildings at Illinois Institute of Technology

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the 52-year-old German native, already an internationally renowned architect, arrived in Chicago in 1938. Armour Institute of Technology (AIT)—as it was then known—welcomed him and two other German colleagues he had selected as faculty members: Ludwig Hilberseimer and Walter Peterhans. The three men had taught at the famed Staatliches Bauhaus (commonly known as the Bauhaus), a German school of modern art and architecture that Mies headed from 1930–33 before the Nazis forced its closure. A fourth man, John Barney Rodgers—an American alumnus of the Bauhaus fluent in German—joined as an administrative assistant to Mies. These additions to the faculty made it clear that AIT was adding considerable substance to its architecture program. It was also clear that the university should expand its South Side campus. In 1940, Armour Institute and Lewis Institute merged to form Illinois Institute of Technology. Armour Institute's original seven acres could not accommodate the combined schools and Mies was encouraged to develop plans for a newly expanded 120-acre campus, now known as Mies Campus [1].

Today Mies Campus boasts 20 buildings designed by the famed architect; it holds the highest concentration of his modern masterpieces anywhere.

Technology Park Buildings, Historically Known as The Institute of Gas Technology Complex

At the time S. R. Crown Hall (Crown Hall) opened in 1956, 34th Street crossed the campus. Thus, the entrance to Crown Hall was placed on its south façade, facing the street. Further south was the Institute of Gas Technology Complex. Although the street has been covered over with lawns and pathways, the entrance remains as designed by Mies.

The Institute of Gas Technology was established in 1941. Housed in five buildings located in the southern portion of the campus and west of State Street, Mies designed two of these buildings, Tech North (3410 S. State Street) and Tech South (3440 S. State Street) in 1950 and 1955 respectively. The building in between these two—Tech Central designed by Schmidt, Garden and Erickson in 1965—was to provide additional space and utilized the same architectural vocabulary as Mies’ buildings. The connecting structures, known as the Power plant (1964) and the Crossover (1977), served as mechanical support and became the interstitial spaces connecting all of these buildings at ground level.

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