IIT Master Plan, Chicago, IL, Campus, site plan, early scheme
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
American, born Germany. 1886–1969
c. 1939-40
A finely rendered pencil on illustration board site plan in which Ludwig Mies van der Rohe lays out an early scheme for the IIT campus, trying to organize buildings and planted courtyards into a rational modernist grid.
What strikes you is the architectural precision — thin, even pencil lines, small stippled textures for beds and trees, and wide expanses of untouched paper that make the measured geometry feel both delicate and monumental.
The drawing makes visible Mies’s commitment to clear structural order and the fusion of building and landscape, a model that helped shape mid‑20th‑century campus and institutional design.
Medium
Pencil on illustration board
Dimensions
30 x 40" (76.1 x 101.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Mies van der Rohe Archive, gift of the architect
Accession
721.1963
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
