In the year 1940, Armour Institute and Lewis Institute merged in Chicago to create the Illinois Institute of Technology. The merging of these two schools called for a new master plan for the university, and Mies van der Rohe was commissioned for the job. Mies' plan for the IIT campus was one of the largest projects he ever conceived and he developed it for twenty years. Today the campus contains 20 of his works, including the famous Crown Hall, which add up to be "the greatest concentration of Mies-designed buildings in the world." More on the IIT Campus and Buildings after the break. The master plan for the campus was based on a 24' by 24' grid that was the structural module used as a mechanical tool for locating building columns. "Orderliness was the real reason," Mies stated on his use of the grid. The dimension of it was determined by room size, accommodating classrooms, drafting rooms, and laboratory work, which were the three main types of expected activity to occur on the campus. Room sizes were determined from the sizes and arrangements of desks, drafting tables, and lab benches. This in turn began as a reverse planning order and determined the direction of the growth of the campus, where the furniture determined the room size, which then added up to the building size, and together the buildings created the campus.
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