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Mies van der Rohe’s campus at the Illinois Institute ofTechnology presents an ambivalent urban condition. It isoften seen as the epitome of the Modernist tabula rasaapproach to planning: the obliteration of context and theimposition of a new and alienating order. Yet his campus plancan be understood in terms of the larger, socially andpolitically engaged efforts at reforming Chicago’s Near SouthSide. In this context, Mies’ plan has been seen as a ‘figuredfield’, an inclusive and energised condition of urban linkage.1

It is undeniable, however, that in recent times IIT as aninstitution has suffered from falling enrolments, and thecampus has developed a reputation as an unsafe environment.

OMA’s McCormick Tribune Campus Centre (1997–2003)finds its raison d’ê tre in this complex situation. OMA respondsto Mies’ campus with an interior urbanism, an arrangementof diverse programmes in a condition that heightens thesense of their relationality. These programmes are a mix ofacademic and leisure facilities that cater to a range ofdifferent users at different times of the day, week and year.

Charles Rice explores interioratmosphere in a site challenged byexisting infrastructure among a generallydeteriorating urban scene. Crediting theOffice for Metropolitan Architecture’s IITbuilding in Chicago with refiguring thefield via the deployment of complexspatial planning, integration of the buildingwith the elevated train rail and a highlydifferentiated illumination scheme, heultimately defines the nature of interiorurbanism, an urbanity and atmospherebeyond the limits of the building envelope.

TheAtmosphereof InteriorUrbanismOMA at IIT

TheAtmosphereof InteriorUrbanismOMA at IIT

Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), McCormick Tribune CampusCentre, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, 1997–2003Mies is recaptured through OMA’s atmospheric lens. In the same way thatweather has become a subject of installation art, atmosphere has become thesubject of architecture’s material and spatial effects.

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The way they are disposed within the centre relates to thepathways and crossing points that connect functions in thewider campus structure. In this way, the Campus Centre isan intensification of the experience of the grid; thebuilding’s organisation embraces the wider campusconditions from the start.

One of the building’s most surprising aspects is the way inwhich it literally incorporates the elevated railway line into itsfabric. Where such a piece of infrastructure might be seen tobe an impediment to the development of such a building –and, indeed, a major impediment to the integration andtherefore the urbanisation of the campus itself – OMAcapitalises on it for the way it contributes to an atmosphere ofthe urban within the building. The shell surrounding theelevated train insulates the building against noise from therailway, making building on this site possible. Yet theincorporation of the shell within the building, and thepalpable vibration of the trains passing overhead, means thatthe trajectory of the train and its urban rhythm is also made

present within the building. This is another way of describingthe building’s interior urbanism: the train is not engaged withas it would be in the city. It is not a literal presence above acity street. However, its atmospheric presence within thebuilding heightens the effect of the building’s interiority. Ifone might say that cities have atmosphere through thecombination of large-scale and often contingent variables –the width of streets, the scale of blocks, topography, zoning –then interior urbanism has atmosphere as the result ofdeliberate architectural effects. It is the architecturalorganisation that makes the presence of the train part of theurban atmosphere of the building.

Given the organisation of the building in terms oftrajectories across the campus, the programmes itincorporates are encountered almost in a glancing fashion.One does not head directly towards a particular function orservice. Rather, one comes to a point or crossing, a moment ofintensity, where options become available. Changes in thefloor level mean that the main entry track becomes a bridge

The building casts its glow outwards on to the campus. Illumination anddifferentiation occur through the effects of material. Programmaticdifferentiation becomes atmospheric differentiation.

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Space itself is montaged. Programmatic zones are spliced together,producing abrupt linkages and opportunistic appropriations.

The building slides underneaththe elevated railway’s sound-absorbing tube.

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that allows one to survey a range of activities at the centre ofthe building. Varying levels of illumination, and contrastbetween light and dark zones, ensure that this field ofpossibilities is variegated in a way that occludes certain areas,depending on position and viewpoint, and also creates anattraction to others. One has to keep moving in order for thefull range of functions and services to be revealed. Along theway, incidental pockets of space and activity become defined,sometimes by the presence of furniture, sometimes by theheight of a ceiling or a change in floor surface.

Illumination and differentiation happen as much bymaterials as by lighting effects. Orange polycarbonatecladding becomes a filter of light into the building, producingzones flooded with orange light at particular points. Thecounterpoint green drywall used for the ceilings, anddeliberately left in a raw state, offers a literal balance to theintensity of the orange, as if trying to cancel the effect ofafterimages. This atmospheric sense of colour and lightproduces an interior condition differentiated diurnally as wellas spatially. Some areas appear in twilight, others in an evendaylight, and yet others in a kind of nocturnal glow. An urban

touring of the building’s programmes is also a temporal one:one accelerates through a day of activities, across variousseasons, into various time zones.

In the same way that weather has become a subject ofinstallation art – OMA’s orange glow bears comparison toOlafur Eliasson’s Weather project installation at Tate Modern in2004 – atmosphere has become the subject of architecture’smaterial and spatial effects. This is not, however, a concernwith the atmosphere and the effect of weather on a building’sexterior fabric, and the consequent celebration of joints,details and materials that would mark the presence of theseeffects over time.2 Rather, weather has become an interiorcondition in order that a building might produce an urbanism– and an urbanity – beyond its boundaries. 4

Notes1. See Sarah Whiting, ‘Bas-relief urbanism: Chicago’s figured field’, in PhyllisLambert (ed), Mies in America, Harry N Abrams (New York), 2001, pp 642–91.2. See Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow, On Weathering: The Life ofBuildings in Time, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA and London), 1993.

Text © 2008 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Charles Rice

Interior surfaces enfold exterior conditions through reflection. The buildingproduces its double. At the same time, different zones are defined throughlight modulations, which are effects of material surfaces.