Walk, Part I

Abstract

The best place to begin a walking tour is with IIT’s oldest standing structure, now officially a Chicago landmark. There the difference between the traditionalism embraced by the nineteenth century and the modernism later employed by Mies is impossible to miss. Architects of the late nineteenth century commonly looked to historical styles for inspiration, and the Romanesque, identified by round arches and heavily rusticated masonry walls, provided the sober monumentality that the Armour Institute (the school’s original name) desired for its first academic building. As realized here, the lowest floor and the addition to the south depend upon battered, undressed sandstone walls. The surface of the higher elevation is red pressed brick. One concession to latter-day usage is added ornamentation in terra cotta-notably in columns, capitals, and sills.