Chicago School of Business
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

With a design that provided abundant communal and teaching spaces, while architecturally complementing two adjacent landmark buildings through massing and material selection; these being Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, exemplary of his Prairie Style, to the north, and the university's neo-Gothic-style Rockefeller Chapel to the west. The Graduate School of Business is centered on the Winter Garden, a...
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Chicago School of Business
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

With a design that provided abundant communal and teaching spaces, while architecturally complementing two adjacent landmark buildings through massing and material selection; these being Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, exemplary of his Prairie Style, to the north, and the university's neo-Gothic-style Rockefeller Chapel to the west. The Graduate School of Business is centered on the Winter Garden, a six-story glass atrium that fills the interior of the building with natural light, establishes a public gathering place, and organizes the building's program elements. The Winter Garden's roof is a four-pointed vault, built of tubular steel, with proportions that follow those of the Rockefeller Chapel's lancet windows. The Winter Garden's four main structural columns flare outward as they rise, resembling the branches of trees in a garden.

The building perimeter is divided into two orders. A lower element, clad in horizontal panels of the same Indiana limestone widely used on other campus structures, establishes the scale of the base of the building and echoes the horizontal composition of Wright's Robie House. Faculty offices above the base are set back to minimize the overall mass and are enclosed by a glazed curtain wall.

Classrooms and lecture halls are located below grade, though natural light from the Winter Garden enters this level through a ring of triple-height spaces that link the lower floor with the main volume of the building. Student services are arranged at ground level on the first floor, with administrative and faculty offices on floors two through five. Horizontal pedestrian circulation and increased opportunities for interaction are encouraged by public stairs within the atrium.

Architect: Rafael Vinoly Architects
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