Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) invites applications for the position, Dean of the College of Architecture. Located on the historic IIT campus in Chicago, the College of Architecture (IITCoA) is one of the world's most renowned architecture schools. Building upon its unique legacy as a center of rigorous thinking and making, IITCoA is focused on the future of practice and scholarship in an increasingly interconnected and urbanized world. With more than 500 students and 80 faculty members from around the world, IITCoA directly embodies the potentials of the contemporary metropolis.
In the last few years something has happened to architects’ willingness to strive for originality. The boldest visions now often come from the old guard of architecture - and frankly, I enjoy conversations with them much more. The current insistence on having common ground pushed so many younger architects into a zombie-like copycat state of mind. But to me, common ground means not to think alike – then there is space for discourse.
My most recent conversation with Helmut Jahn at his Chicago office is a case in point. “Architecture is all about going with your gut. I prefer when form follows force rather than function,” he told me. His distinguished career has been one of twists and turns, and he is not planning to give up exploring new ideas any time soon. His 1985 quadrant-in-plan Thompson Center reinvented a mundane government typology into a soaring public place, with its curved colored glass facade decisively welcoming a postmodernist period to Chicago (one we thought had finished, but now seems to be ongoing, encompassing all of post-Modern movements as its mere shades and variations.) Jahn’s architecture shook and modernized a number of global cities, and with time and experience, what began as a rebellion against Mies’s “less is more” modus operandi matured into nuanced, measured, though unquestionably gutsy, production of towers, airports, convention centers, headquarters, and, most importantly, public spaces. As Jahn himself says, “...anything you don’t need is a benefit. Not only you have to have less things but with the things you have left you have to do more.”
This July 9th, the winners of the inaugural Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) - for which 36 outstanding projects have been shortlisted - will be announced in Santiago, Chile. Our editor-in-chief, David Basulto, has been named a founding member of the International Advisory Council of MCHAP, and ArchDaily will be covering the event. Read on after the break for details of the event.
