Due to overwhelming demand to make room in Graceland Cemetery, many graves of both famous and non-famous people have been relocated. Illinois Tech’s most famous architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, also known as the Creator of Boxes, was one of the graves that were chosen to be relocated.
While Graceland Cemetery can not dig up anybody without consent, the city has offered a sum of money to assist with the relocation of each body based on their net worth (not accounting for inflation). Mies van der Rohe was deemed worth $69k.
As Illinois Tech was known as Mies van der Rohe’s grid city, the Mies van der Rohe Society thought the best place would be to bring his body back to campus. To best honor his legacy, it was determined that his body should be placed in one of the newest buildings on campus: McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC). “It’s what he would’ve wanted,” said an anonymous society member. “We all know that Mies’s favorite thing in the world was complex building design. We thought he would appreciate MTCC.”
Mies van der Rohe’s body was buried in Potter’s Alley, an area within MTCC that is currently occupied by computers and printers. Despite the electronics present in the space, the area is rarely used by students, a mystery that no staff member has been able to explain as of yet. As this space isn’t often trodden on, it was deemed the perfect location for the new grave site.
Despite the payout that came with the relocation, only $420 were used to move and rebury the esteemed architect’s body. His new gravestone, in contrast to his original, sleek, simple black granite, is a bright white marble in the shape of MTCC in plan view. The rest of the payout will be given to Illinois Tech so that his campus may continue to be maintained in the pristine condition that Mies van der Rohe left it in when he passed.
Illinois Tech students, especially the College of Architecture (CoA) students, continue to visit his grave on a regular basis, as per request by the CoA faculty. “We hear about Mies about once a week in our classes,” said a CoA student. “The professors really glaze him, so he must have only done good things for the world. Definitely nothing controversial that could ever be brought up in history classes.”
Supreme Leader Raj Echambadi hopes that Mies van der Rohe can find joy in his new forever home.