Chicago—Sept.
30, 2003—Leaders at Illinois Institute of Technology
(IIT) today joined with officials from the McCormick Tribune Foundation
and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) to dedicate The
McCormick Tribune Campus Center. The much-anticipated building, designed
by Dutch architect and Pritzker Prize laureate Rem Koolhaas, marks
the culmination of five years of planning and construction on the historic
Mies van der Rohe-designed IIT Main Campus. It is Koolhaas’ and
OMA’s first completed building in North America.
The
$48.2 million Campus Center includes two primary components: a 110,000-square-foot,
one-story building to serve a wide variety of student activity functions;
and a 530-foot-long stainless steel clad tube that sits directly above
the building’s roof, designed to significantly muffle the noise
and vibration generated by passing Chicago Transit Authority commuter
trains. The complex forms a new nexus for the academic and residential
corridors of IIT’s Main Campus, approximately four miles south
of Chicago’s Downtown Loop.
Koolhaas’ interior
layout for the building was inspired by pre-existing footpaths that criss-crossed
under the train tracks, formed by students walking back and forth between
residence halls and classroom buildings on the IIT Main Campus during
the past 70 years.
“The
Campus Center fulfills our vision to create a nucleus for this university,” said
IIT President Lew Collens. “Our exceptional students deserve this
one-of-a-kind space and at the same time it solidifies IIT’s leadership
role in architectural innovation: from the birth of Mies van der Rohe’s
revolutionary modernism to Rem Koolhaas’ daring concept that inspires
the next generation of architects and designers.”
The
Campus Center complex – from conception to completion – brought
together three of the world’s leading innovators: IIT, a 113-year-old
private, Ph.D.-granting university with programs in engineering, mathematics,
science, psychology, architecture, business, design and law; OMA, considered
one of the world’s top architecture and design firms; and the McCormick
Tribune Foundation, one of the nation’s largest philanthropic foundations,
which provided $13 million in funding for the project.
“This
building provided a great revitalization opportunity for IIT and the
historic Bronzeville neighborhood, ” said Dick Behrenhausen, president
and CEO of the McCormick Tribune Foundation. “We also see it as
a catalyst to usher in a rebirth of new, breakthrough architecture in
Chicago, the likes of which we haven’t witnessed in more than a
decade.”
Inside,
the Campus Center boasts an array of architectural and design innovations
not seen anywhere in the world: transparent and opaque glass walls, unique
floor and ceiling finishes, customized graphic elements and a contoured,
concrete roof to accommodate the bottom of the cylindrical tube.
Dining
facilities, auditorium and meeting rooms, student organization offices,
the campus bookstore, a coffee bar, a post office and a convenience store
will all be located in The McCormick Tribune Campus Center, unifying
in one building functions that had been scattered in several Main Campus
buildings. The new building also embraces the old; uniquely connecting
itself to the Mies-designed Commons Building, which is being fully restored
to be used as a central dining hall for the student residences.
The
tube, the predominate feature atop the building, was an integral component
of Koolhaas’ design for The McCormick Tribune Campus Center, which
won the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation International Design Competition
in 1998.
“The
elevated train has a huge impact on IIT’s character,” said
Koolhaas. “It demanded an innovative technological concept for
the train enclosure for an institution devoted to technology.”
The
building’s unique architecture also makes an explicit statement
about IIT’s commitment to investment in the ongoing resurgence
of Chicago’s Near South Side. The new Campus Center is the latest
in a series of high profile building projects in Bronzeville, Chinatown,
Bridgeport and U.S. Cellular Field.
In July
2003, IIT opened the new State Street Village student residence hall,
designed by award-winning Chicago architect Helmut Jahn. State Street
Village and The McCormick Tribune Campus Center are the first new buildings
to be constructed on the IIT Main Campus in nearly 40 years.
Both
buildings are part of IIT’s Main Campus Master Plan, which received
the prestigious 2003 Burnham Award from Chicago’s Metropolitan
Planning Council for excellence in planning. Other aspects of the Master
Plan include a recently launched revitalization of Mies van der Rohe
campus buildings.
