I should add the massive parking lots and open "space" in the center of campus do not do anything for it - its aort of like a no mans land. I hope theyer planning on developing the center south and east of the new dorms

i think it is a great example of modernism at it's zenith, both at the planning and architectural scales. i haven't spent a lot of time on the campus, 2 of my three visits were running through during running races, so perhaps i can't really give a critical analysis.

let me say that mies was a genius, and i deeply respect what he was doing in the context of it's time and place. the campus is probably a great lesson in the history of modernism for the students who are there. that said, i don't think we should build this way anymore. the buildings are beautiful for the first 5 minutes, and then they become outrageously cold and uncomfortable, and clearly they are not efficient. perhaps i am speaking the obvious, but there is a certain fetishization of "modern" among designers which does not to me add up to being thoughful, critical, or useful, in our current time.

personally i think it is more or less a suburban campus in scale, and this is what i like about it. it is a garden in the city. but during the short periods of time i was there, it did seem to be lacking in "life." this is not all bad, as it is supposed to be a place of learning.

i think there is far more urban thinking behind this and all of mies' projects than what he is given credit for; perhaps this was hilbersheimer's influence. iit is in a way suburban in that it forsakes density for space, but it is thoughtfully tied into both highway and rail transportation networks. while it is far from the city center, it is very easily accessible. say what you will about the efficacy of urban renewal, mies' best work was in cities. the openness of the space around his buildings is a great relief from the congestion of the city grid. density and space play off of each other. think the seagram plaza. towers in a park work, but its adjacencies need to be equally considered - in my opinion why mies' suburban imitators failed so miserably.

nix efficacy, replace with ethics

did hilbersheimer work with mies on the iit campus?

good question - from my thirty second google search, it appears so, but i don't know much about the collaboration on that project.

Did Mies do the east half? It looks so much more romantic notion in the orig. black and white photo at the top

to the best of my knowledge mies did most of the west half, planning and buildings, and really was only involved in a few buildings on the east half.
The chapel ( which is really, really cool )
the commons
and the grad dorms/towers at the north of campus.

There was a concerted effort to divide the campus into a living and working sections.

I have always noticed this drive most in the rather focal, courtyard type public space on the east side of state street, and the more informal/passing/causal public space on the west.

On the east of campus, public green spaces are highly focal, like in the quad, in front of the Main dorms, or in front of the grad towers. The buildings on the east are more regularly placed and spaced, they appear more static and anchored, and the open spaces they frame are more static and well defined.

On the west of campus, the public spaces are a result of classroom buildings sliding along side each other. They are less regularly spaced, and the green spaces sort of weave around them, providing open passing spaces more suited for quick happenstance type conversations.

In my opinion, the west side of campus is by far the more engaging, and the more dynamic placement of the classroom volumes is anything but drab. In particular the narrow canyons between classroom volumes. Though the buildings on either side are similar, the scale and closeness of the building pairs allows for friction still.

Funny thing is, as much as I love modernism and Mies, when I think of my own "ideal" physical campus environment, I always think of that other school down the road from IIT, the University of Chicago.

I actually find U of C's campus to be excessively expansive and disjointed. It lacks coherence both in its actual building stock and it its planning.
Plus it has 2 of the uggliest big budget/blockbuster buildings i have ever seen.

but it is a fantastic school, and hyde park is an awesome neighborhood. it definitely benefits from a much more beautiful context.

i lived in chicago for four years and never made it to iit campus. maybe next time.

Yeah, there are some hideous buildings down there... I was thinking of the original gothic buildings at the core of the campus, though.

Speaking of hideous buildings, tt's interesting to note that the main libraries at IIT, UIC, UChicago, and Northwestern were all designed by Walter Netsch of SOM.

I'll admit there's a refreshing quiet dignity to the IIT campus when compared to someplace like the University of Cincinnati, which has a dozen starchitect-designed buildings each screaming, "Look at me!!" Some of the individual buildings are very nice, but the overall campus is much less successful as an integrated whole.

I know the IIT campus very well, so I'll give a stab at this question. There are a million ways you can interpret it. Also, the seasons and things like light make a huge difference in how the campus looks. It's also not completely fair judging the Miesian intent of the campus when it's in such bad repair. It's getting better, but the progress is slow. They're going to renovate the chapel next Spring. They finally finished Wishnick, which was a $30 million restoration, and it's not that big a building. If you visit, imagine all the buildings looking like Wishnick, and you can get a feel that the place was probably quite beautiful around 1960.

The campus is pretty much suburban in scale, I suppose, but Mies wasn't trying for urban - actually, kind of the opposite - as he was attempting to disconnect it from its surroundings - a rather blighted area of Chicago, then and until very recently. You probably know that the whole campus was an urban renewal project. If you've never heard of them, look up the Mecca Apartments sometime. That beautiful building and several Louis Sullivan buildings were torn down to build IIT.

The west side of the campus was designed by Mies. However, some of the most potentially dynamic spaces (the fields between the Hermann Union and the Galvin Library) were never developed as Mies planned them. When Mies was fired in 1959, SOM was given these two commissions. Walter Netsch did a pretty bad job with them (though Netsch's work is sometimes interesting, just not unified.) Mies's sketches of these buildings were planned to face onto these lawns - however SOM had them face onto Dearborn Street for some reason, so those lawns are essentially unused/wasted space. I agree, the canyons are pretty cool. Also, note how Siegel and Wishnick (the three story buildings at center) create a wall that squeezes the corridor that is 33rd Street and creates an interesting division between the shorter buildings on either side.

Hilberseimer was the structural engineer for the IIT campus, Alfred Caldwell was the Landscape Architect. Most of Caldwell's work on the campus has been lost, however it is slowly being restored. A faithful (guessed) recreation was added to Crown this past summer.

The east side was not designed by Mies. It is a mishmash of later architects. There are a few Mies buildings among them - the Commons (now part of the MTCC), three of the four midrise apartment buildings, and the chapel. For the most part, however, the work over there are good examples of the crummy cheap modernism that Mies accidentally inspired, and ultimately gave modernism a bad name. There is, however, a Harry Weese building over there also, if you know where to look.

I agree that the buildings are pretty "cold." Honestly, best I can tell, Mies wasn't too interested in humans. There are plenty of counterarguments to that statement, both in his designs and through his curriculum - however, I find it hard to see how his buildings take humans into account, personally.

I could write forever. I should shut up now.

Whether or not the buildings take humans into account im not sure i can argue. I can however say that the scale of the campus is very user friendly. Its programatically dense enough that getting around is easy, and navigating the campus predominantly pleasant... especially on the west side of state street.
I think the real measure of how much thought was actually given to the spaces created with Mies' system are found inside the buildings.
Anyone who has been inside crown hall can tell you that it has the potential to be an expansive space ( in center court ) and an intimate one on the periphery due to the scale and size of the windows.
And another particular favorite of mine is the south stair case in i think armour hall. It rises to meet clear story windows which light a very warm wood paneled hallway, which clearly distinguishes itself as "office space" rather than "learning space"