A new era of architecture at IIT


On September 30, 2003, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) cut the ribbon on its much-anticipated McCormick Tribune Campus Center. Pritzker Prize winning architect Rem Koolhaas, of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Rotterdam, designed the $48 million complex.

For five years, IIT worked closely with Koolhaas and his OMA staff in the development and adjustments of the schematic drawings since Koolhaas was first announced as the campus center design competition winner on February 5, 1998. Koolhaas created a partnership with Holabird & Root, Chicago, Illinois, for development of the designs and structural engineering for the Campus Center. Also included for building systems were Skidmore Owings and Merrill of Chicago; for engineering, Ove Arup of London; and for acoustical design, TNO of Eindhoven and Kierkegaard Engineers of Downers Grove.

A predominate feature of the building is a stainless steel clad tube that surrounds 530 feet of the Chicago Transit Authority’s Green Line elevated train tracks, as it passes through IIT’s Main Campus on Chicago’s South Side. The tube’s construction, is an integral component of Koolhaas’ design for The McCormick Tribune Campus Center.

“The tube is an amazing engineering feat,” said IIT President Lew Collens. “It provides an important prototype for solving acoustical problems that limit land uses near elevated tracks in many cities.”

The tube runs along the roof of The McCormick Tribune Campus Center. Although the tube does not completely silence the noise generated by passing trains—which can reach up to 120 decibels—it muffles both the sound and vibrations, reducing the noise to acceptable levels.

Inside, the one-story, 110,000 square foot building features transparent glass walls and a contoured concrete roof to accommodate the bottom of the cylindrical tube. Dining halls, student organization offices, bookstore, coffee bar, a student recreational facility and a faculty club are located in the new campus center, unifying in one building functions that had been scattered about campus.

The new campus center occupies a site in the heart of the university’s historic Mies van der Rohe campus, between 32nd and 33rd streets on the east side of State Street. The campus center’s new neighbor, the recently dedicated Helmut Jahn-designed State Street Village student residence hall, offers IIT students state-of-the-art technology in a cutting-edge living environment.

The acoustical tube was a key element in the Koolhaas design, which won IIT’s Richard H. Driehaus Foundation International Design Competition in 1998. In speaking of his design, Koolhaas stated, “The elevated has a huge impact on IIT’s character. It demanded an innovative technological concept for the train enclosure for an institution devoted to technology.” Koolhaas won the 2000 Pritzker Prize, architecture’s most significant award for lifetime achievement.

The building’s unique architecture also makes an explicit statement about IIT’s commitment to investment in the South Side’s ongoing resurgence. The new campus center is the latest in a series of high profile building projects in the near south community consisting of Bronzeville, the Gap, Chinatown, Bridgeport, and U.S. Cellular Field. New construction includes Chicago Police Headquarters at 35th and Michigan Avenue and the Michigan Place condominiums on 31st and Michigan.