Contract - March 2015 - 51

The school's collection of
abstract modern art is on
display (left) throughout the
annex. Interior finishes are
otherwise subdued, such as
in the large lecture halls
(opposite, top). Behind the
stainless steel reception desk
(opposite, bottom) is a
custom-designed, floor-toceiling display wall lacquered
in four tones of gray and
featuring the school's logo.
Beyond the wall is a space with
a work bar (previous spread)
that is often used for events.

T
 

he University of Chicago Booth School of Business, one of
the top of its kind in the country, needed a new collaborative
space that reflected the future with a global presence. In
sharp contrast with the Booth School of Business Gleacher
Center, the recently opened annex to the Gleacher Center is more
future-forward, restrained, and less stodgy "business school" in its
appearance. And that's by design.
First, here is what the annex was designed in reaction to:
When entering the Gleacher Center-completed in 1994 just north
of the Chicago River in downtown Chicago-one sees dark wood,
a maroon-marbled lobby, and a portrait of the building's namesake
financier Eric J. Gleacher seated in a wooden chair in front of a
Chippendale highboy cabinet. The interiors of the Gleacher Center,
and even that painting, tap into a much older and now outdated image
of a business school. But across the street, the 15,000-square-foot
Gleacher Center Annex sets that patriarchal look aside.
Located on the ground floor of NBC Tower and designed
by Chicago-based Woodhouse Tinucci Architects, the annex is
concerned with theory and data, not historical design tropes and elite
subcultures. Intensely minimalist and abstract, it presents a business
culture that applies equally to its increasingly diverse range of
students-not just those who see a future version of themselves
in the Gleacher portrait. Even the art on the walls draws a sharp
distinction. The interior's restrained color and material palette embody
a school that is a technocratic and transparent expression of how
information technology and the availability of data have reshaped
business education.

The annex is planned with three parallel bands of programmatic
elements. The first is largely public and social: Beyond the glass wall
lining the street front, an open lounge area is flanked by meeting rooms
on each side, with one nearly entirely enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glass.
Students encounter a custom-designed, floor-to-ceiling display wall
lacquered in four tones of gray, containing the school's logo and fronted
by a stainless steel desk.
Behind the display wall is a bar and reception area used for events.
A long walnut table with a stainless steel countertop is surrounded by
wire mesh Bertoia chairs. Throughout, rectilinear lighting fixtures by
Birchwood are a consistent presence, including custom-designed
square outline chandeliers in one of the front meeting rooms.
The second programmatic band consists of gray oak pavilions
with walnut doors and glass walls that contain 16 study rooms. Because
they're not connected to the 18-foot ceiling, these pavilions make the
surrounding space feel light and airy. From the study rooms facing the
lounge, students have views through glass out to the street. Woodhouse
Tinucci Principal Andy Tinucci, AIA, says that the use of glass was a way
to convey notions of transparency in business and to encourage a visible
relationship with the city beyond. "There's total transparency through
[to] the city, the social areas, and the learning [spaces]," he says.
In the third programmatic band, two large lecture halls are
adjacent to an experimental classroom, which is fronted with fritted
glass. The fritting on the glass wall superimposes three layers of
sloping, parallel lines resembling a bar graph and alluding to the focus
on data and theory over tradition and history. The other three walls
feature large media screens, which students-seated in six groups
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Contract - March 2015

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