Wishnick Hall

Clarity of Expression

Goal $16 million will convert Wishnick's building systems, and renovations to the second and third floors will create state-of-the-art laboratories and classrooms for IIT's new, groundbreaking programs in biomedical engineering and mathematics and science teacher education.

The Chemistry Building, later renamed Wishnick Hall in honor of IIT graduate and trustee Robert Wishnick, is one of the core academic buildings that define the architectural theme of the entire IIT campus.

Wishnick Hall is a prime example of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's insistence on clarity of expression. It is nine bays long, three bays wide, and three stories tall, and includes a full basement. The bays are expressed by exposed steel spandrels and columns. The use of voids and solids elegantly reveals the functions inside, and the edges of the building turn on Mies' famed corner detail.

IIT's most innovative and rapidly growing programs will be housed in the renovated Wishnick Hall. Its architectural features, both exterior and interior, will be refurbished; its mechanical system updated; and its flexible interior partially reconfigured to serve new purposes.