Studying Here
If you could invent your own architecture school, it would have to be something like this one. Our students work daily in Mies van der Rohe’s S.R. Crown Hall—a modern masterpiece other students only get to experience in a textbook. They live in Chicago, America’s architectural capitol and a cultural, economic, entertainment, and research powerhouse with few equals (its economic output alone is larger than all but 21 of the world’s countries). They study with top designers. They benefit from a vast network of professional connections, endowed support for research and travel, nearly 170 student organizations and athletic teams, 27 miles of lakefront parks, and an amazing fabrication center. All of this (and more) means IIT students have nearly endless opportunities for engagement and success.
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Photo by Hedrich Blessing
History & Legacy
No school has had a greater influence on American architecture than IIT. Our graduates and faculty have included some of the most important designers of the last 100 years. Their architecture shapes cities around the world, and their scholarship has led to innovations in areas ranging from long span construction to the creation of the supertall skyscraper. Today, whether designing the nation’s first Agro-Eco district in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood or building a sustainable library and community center in rural Vietnam, IIT’s College of Architecture continues to bring positive change to the world around us.
Learn more about the IIT legacy.
Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP)
IIT is the only American school of architecture to house an internationally renowned architecture awards program, the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, or MCHAP. MCHAP celebrates outstanding projects in architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism across the Americas, and identifies exciting emerging design practices. The program brings the College widespread recognition. More importantly, it affords a wealth of activities that directly benefit our students, from lectures and panels featuring the world’s top designers, to studios and seminars taught by the most influential emerging architectural voices in North, Central and Southern America. MCHAP is unique to IIT, and by studying here, you can be a part of it.
Learn more about MCHAP.
Master of Tall Buildings and Vertical Urbanism (M.TBVU)
The College of Architecture has a long history in the design of tall buildings. Mies built the first all-glass residential high-rise while teaching here. In the 1970s, our students and faculty worked with architects from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on developing the first super-tall skyscrapers. Now, IIT, in partnership with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH, the leading authority on tall buildings) have developed the nation’s first tall building design degree. Like Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, the M.TBVU—and our relationship with CTBUH—enriches the College through lectures, studios and seminars, and opportunities for students to study with the world’s most important tall building architects.
Learn more about the M.TBVU degree program.
Photo by Peter Sieger
Our Facilities
Our home, S.R. Crown Hall, is perhaps the most beautiful—and renowned—structure ever built to house a school of architecture. Designed as a teaching tool, it is an inspiring place to work every day. Crown is the center of a three-building, 90,000 square-foot complex (all designed by Mies) that includes studios, classrooms, lecture halls, labs, offices, a 21,000-volume library, and one of the largest, most comprehensive fabrication labs of any architecture program in the country. These are complemented by the university’s expansive teaching and research facilities in six academic colleges, including business, computing, design, engineering, and liberal arts and sciences.
Learn more about Crown Hall.
Learn more about the Fabrication Center.
Learn more about the Graham Resource Center.