{"nrhp_refnum":"05000871","name":"Illinois Institute of Technology Academic Campus","other_names":["Armour Institute of Technology"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by 31st St., State St., 325th St. and the Dan Ryan Expressway","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":41.83765484600008,"lon":-87.62846426899995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2005-08-12","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Education"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A campus historic district of twenty-six buildings on about 60 acres in the Douglas neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, covering the academic portion of the Illinois Institute of Technology (formerly Armour Institute of Technology), laid out by Mies van der Rohe from 1940.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the campus is nationally significant as the master plan and architecture of Mies van der Rohe, where he developed and refined his design principles, including a modular grid, expressed steel structure and the clear-span S.R. Crown Hall. It also contains three earlier Richardsonian Romanesque buildings from Armour Institute of Technology, and later buildings by SOM and Schmidt, Garden and Erikson that followed Mies's vocabulary. Mies's teaching and planning at IIT strongly influenced American and world architecture.","narrative":"Illinois Institute of Technology's academic campus occupies about 60 acres in Chicago's Douglas neighborhood, on the South Side. Twenty-six buildings make up the district: three from the Armour Institute of Technology era, fourteen designed by Mies van der Rohe, and nine added afterward. The oldest are the Main Building (1891-93), Machinery Hall (1901) and the Maintenance Garage (1901), all by Patten & Fischer, with the first two in Richardsonian Romanesque style. Mies planned the campus on a twenty-four foot by twelve foot modular grid, and his buildings use black painted steel, glass and buff brick, with the structure left visible. S.R. Crown Hall departs from that pattern with a steel and glass enclosure spanning clear of interior supports. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Schmidt, Garden and Erikson later built in a similar manner. The campus is listed for its link to Mies's planning and teaching and for its influence on architecture in the United States and abroad.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Mies van der Rohe (campus plan and 14 buildings); Patten & Fischer (Main Building, Machinery Hall, Maintenance Garage); Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; Schmidt, Garden and Erikson; Holabird & Root (associate architect)","architectural_style":"Other: Miesian; Richardsonian Romanesque","criteria":[],"status_note":"Campus remains in educational use; Main Building and Machinery Hall are described as retaining very good integrity, though the Main Building's south wing is in poor repair.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.816867-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/50/8923/28892350/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/05000871.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000871/1a5ac5bb58-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000871/1a5ac5bb58-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Joe Ravi","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IIT_Machinery_Hall.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Joe Ravi</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IIT_Machinery_Hall.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"12000040","name":"Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/illinois/chicago-park-boulevard-system-historic-district-12000040/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892350","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Institute_of_Technology_Academic_Campus","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5999527"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/illinois-institute-of-technology-academic-campus-05000871/"}