The McCormick Tribune Campus Center looks to revitalize the inherent urbanism masterplan planned by Mies van der Rohe in 1940 for the Illinois Institute of Technology, ignored a long time prior. The design of the building started in 1997 during an international building design competition facilitated by the school. Finalists included Diminish Eisenman, Helmut Jahn, Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima, and the winner, Rem Koolhaas. He worked with Chicago architecture firm Holabird & Root, especially on basic building issues. The location was previously a heavily utilized student parking parcel with tracks of the Green Line passing overhead. Koolhaas followed movements of students over the part, which driven to diagonal passageways as the center's interior thoroughfares.