Crown Hall
- Architect
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- Year
- 1950
- Style
- International Style
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Collection
- mies in chicago
S. R. Crown Hall was completed in 1956 for the Illinois Institute of Technology's College of Architecture, the program its designer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, led for two decades. Raised on a podium above grade, it is Mies's clearest built demonstration of structural clarity: the entire roof hangs from four exterior steel girders, leaving the interior free of columns. A National Historic Landmark and Chicago Landmark, it stands as one of Mies's most complete statements of architecture as pure steel-and-glass structure.
the building
Clear-span structure. The roof sits 18 feet above the main floor and is carried by four steel girders resting on four pairs of exterior columns, a clear-span solution that lets the 120-by-220-foot main hall run open beneath it, broken only by two mechanical shafts and low partition walls.
Raised main level. The main teaching floor sits 6 feet above grade, reached by a broad porch on the south side, while a basement level below holds rooms arranged around a U-shaped corridor linking two stairways.
Glass curtain wall. The exterior walls are a glass curtain wall divided into three horizontal tiers of panes, framed by steel columns and mullions, the same steel-and-glass vocabulary Mies used across the IIT campus he planned.
the style
Crown Hall is Mies van der Rohe's clearest built argument for what he called universal space: a single unobstructed room whose structure and skin are the same thing. There is no applied ornament; the steel frame and glass panes are the entire architectural statement, an approach modern architecture's later reputation for structural honesty traces directly back to buildings like this one.
More on International Stylethe architect
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe led IIT's College of Architecture for two decades, and Crown Hall was designed to house that program. It stands as one of the clearest expressions of his structural philosophy anywhere on the campus he planned, a signature building of steel-frame modernism in Chicago.
More on Ludwig Mies van der Rohesignificance
Crown Hall is a Chicago Landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and designated a National Historic Landmark, with the city designation recorded October 1, 1997. The site previously held Mecca Flats, an earlier apartment building on the block.
more by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
nearby
- McCormick Tribune Campus Center
- Carr Memorial Chapel
- Pilgrim Baptist Church
- Chicago Bee Building
- Robert W. Roloson Houses
- Wabash Avenue YMCA