McCormick Tribune Campus Center collection, 1998-2002

In July 1997, Illinois Institute of Technology announced the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation International Design Competition to select an architect for the building which later became identified as the McCormick Tribune Campus Center on the Mies Campus of Illinois Institute of Technology. Thirty-nine architects reviewed the initial submissions and chose five teams to submit models. The five finalists were: Peter Eisenman (New York), Zaha Hadid (London), Rem Koolhaas (Rotterdam), Helmut Jahn and Werner Sobek (Chicago and Stuttgart), and Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (Tokyo). The final presentations were held in Feb. 1998, with a public announcement and reception held on Feb. 5, 1998. Jury members who chose the winner were: James Ingo Freed, K. Michael Hayes, Phyllis Lambert, Mark Scogin (chair), Rick Solomon. On selection of the architect, Rem Koolhaas, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (aka, OMA), Netherlands, the McCormick Tribune Foundation announced a $10 million gift to the university, which was matched by the Galvin-Pritzker Challenge Grant, for the construction of the building. An Illinois FIRST $9 million grant for construction of the Exelon Tube (noise buffer around the Chicago CTA Green Line El, i.e., the elevated public transit train, which runs over the Campus Center) was announced by Gov. George Ryan on Dec. 7, 1999. Groundbreaking for MTCC was held in March 9, 2000, and the building was dedicated Sept. 30, 2003.