Skip to Content
Closed today, next open Thursday. Closed today, next open Thursday.

The Titanic

A black-and-white photo collage featuring Mies van der Rohe's Crown Hall building—a long, rectangular, single-story building with walls of glass windows—submerged in a large body of water at 45 degrees, against a cloud-filled sky.
© 1978 Stanley Tigerman

Image actions

  • A black-and-white photo collage featuring Mies van der Rohe's Crown Hall building—a long, rectangular, single-story building with walls of glass windows—submerged in a large body of water at 45 degrees, against a cloud-filled sky.

Date:

1978

Artist:

Stanley Tigerman
American, 1930–2019

About this artwork

The groundbreaking innovations of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe left a lasting impact on both the practice and teaching of architecture in the United States, especially in Chicago. As director of the School of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Mies stressed the importance of bold, clean designs based on structure, materials, and function. Stanley Tigerman was among the many architects schooled in the Miesian tradition, and he based much of his work in the 1960s and 1970s on the designs of the famed architect. Tigerman’s restless curiosity and iconoclastic spirit, however, led him to question the authority and durability of Mies’s program. The Titanic is a conceptual project that was meant to provoke architects to contend with the Mies legacy, challenging them to choose sides: move beyond Mies or remain cemented to the past. The photocollage pitches Mies’s Crown Hall (1950–56), one of the architect’s most iconic and revered designs, into the deep. Tigerman mailed copies of the work to members of the architectural establishment, including an offer of a one-way ticket on the Titanic. Although the title of the work portends the end of Mies’s dominance, Tigerman acknowledged that many would see the building as rising back to the surface, ever triumphant.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Architecture and Design

Artist

Stanley Tigerman

Title

The Titanic

Place

State Street, 3360 South (Place depicted)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1978

Medium

Photocollage, gelatin silver print, cardboard

Dimensions

Approx: 28 × 35.7 cm (11 × 14 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Stanley Tigerman

Reference Number

1984.802

Copyright

© 1978 Stanley Tigerman

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share