Curating and showcasing the work of over 500 students and dozens of their professors, combining both the digital and physical realms of architecture and filling the monumental interior of Crown Hall befitting of its creator is the feat incumbent of the design for each of the end of the year shows for the College of Architecture at IIT.
Each year, the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture hosts an end of year exhibition transforming Mies van der Rohe’s renowned Crown Hall into a rich public exhibition of student work. Projects are guided by the curriculum of various studio courses and include work from first year architecture students to master’s level scholars.
ParkFowler Plus Principal, Jennifer Park, and Professor in Practice at IIT, has been curating this important exhibition for the school since 2022. Every show has a varying theme, with the most recent 2023 show being centered around “Context”, which aims to understand the work of architecture more deeply—in the environment that informed it, among the thoughts that evolved it, and surrounded by the choices that developed it.
The center installation is enveloped with the remnants of the design process – collections of sketches and iterative models, while the glowing interior peaks through the slips of planes containing clips of studio life gathered throughout the year. The installation balances the refined final projects surrounding it and becomes both insight and intrigue for visitors to the year-end show.
