McCormick Tribune Campus Center Covers Its Tracks
by 
Matt B on May 19th, 2008
This week's architectural attraction looks like it came from the cartoon show, The Jetsons. The McCormick Tribune Campus Center, officially opened in September 2003, is just one of several eye-appealing structures at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Before the building was constructed, there was merely a parking lot which several students walked across to get to class, while the noisy Green Line train passed overhead. Several of the campus functions, like the bookstore and student organization offices, were spread across campus. The Campus Center brought all these offices together along with a new cafeteria. But the train runs right over the roof of the Campus Center! Anyone who's taken the eL knows how loud those trains can be. So what to do about all that noise?
That's where the building's most remarkable feature comes in. The stainless steel tube surrounds 530 feet (162 m) of the CTA's Green Line elevated train tracks. It does not completely silence the noise, but it does muffle both the sound and the vibrations.[1]
The building is just as eye-catching indoors as well. The tube gives the roof a unique contoured shape, and the walls are made of transparent glass.
Students at IIT have had mixed reactions to the building. It certainly is a marvel to look at, but the tube doesn't completely drown out the noise of passing trains. That racket probably isn't conducive to work or studying. The students even had an interesting nickname for the Center: 'the Building Under The Tube- or shortly, 'the B.U.T.T.'
Photo credit: (c/o Flickr) 2:19, fensterbme, Ricardo Phillips, numstead
McCormick Tribune Campus Center: 3201 S State St; 312-567-3000 (main campus number)
Public trans: Bus # 29 (or Green Line[2])
http://www.iit.edu/mtcc/
[1] A new era of architecture at IIT. (n.d.). Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://www.iit.edu/departments/pr/masterplan/mccormick_gallery/summary.html
[2] The Green Line train does not stop here. You can travel through the tube between the Roosevelt and 35th-Bronzeville stations.
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