As reported in the Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University Bloomington’s Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design has started construction on a new building based on a design by Mies van der Rohe. The dead modernist designed the building in 1952 and it was initially supposed to be a fraternity house. Sidney Eskenazi, one of the namesakes of the design school, solicited the design, but it was never built. Much later, Eskenazi remembered the design, and the school decided to use it as the basis for its new building. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi donated $20 million for the new facility, which was approved by the school’s board of trustees last August.
The design appears to fit neatly within van der Rohe’s high modernist oeuvre. It features a glass-clad rectangular level elevated over a partially enclosed plaza. Renderings and descriptions from the Daily show a white-painted steel structure, and the 10,000-square-foot building will house lecture and learning spaces, as well as offices.
Van der Rohe, who died in 1969, is obviously not available to oversee construction, and Thomas Phifer and Partners is in charge of fleshing out the design for the school and realizing the building.
When the building was announced last year, it was expected to be completed in June 2021; no word on how the coronavirus pandemic may have impacted that schedule.
