Once Upon A Skyline

Mies van der Rohe Building

1952/2021

After 70 years on hold, the plans for this modernist gem finally became a reality in 2021 at the northwest corner of 7th Street and Eagleson Avenue in Bloomington. With financial support from Sidney and Lois Eskenazi, IU built the new hub of the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design based on Mies’s original design for the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity house. Architects Thomas Phifer and Steve Dayton of New York helped modernize the plan, including the installation of a new elevator, up-to-date heating and cooling systems, and refining elements to bring the building to modern codes.

Cantor Summer House Sketch

1947

Joseph Cantor asked Mies to design a summer house on land that Cantor owned in Hamilton County. The property was located adjacent to a small pond, and Mies’s design considered a massive structure with transparent glass walls extending in all directions overlooking it. The house design was never built, but it included elements of other residential structures by Mies that have become famous, including the Edith Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, which was being designed the same year and was ultimately completed in 1951.

 mountains or oceans but …” If you work