Abstract

The article discusses the question, if the past as a legitimation for collegiate architecture becomes obsolete after the change from historical styles to modern architecture in 20th century America. On the one hand, the example of Walter Gropius’ Harvard Graduate Center (1948) shows that traditions like the Harvard’s yard are still used on a very abstract level to fit a new building group into the university. On the other hand, the ambition of past decades to define future through architecture or a masterplan seems to be inappropriate after deep changes in society caused by the depression and by World War II later. As a consequence, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe tries to make changes possible for the new Campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (after 1938): his grid allows to add new building parts easily, and to give them more or less a shape for changing functions.

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