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A business school annex eschews stereotypes and reinforces the identity of its increasingly diverse student body
" 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 nowoutdated 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...