Hall of Fame

The IIT Hall of Fame celebrates the contributions to the university and society of men and women who have established an outstanding professional record for integrity, innovation, professional or academic achievement, leadership, public responsibility and citizenship. The individuals must have established a personal reputation for outstanding character, bringing great credit and honor upon the university. Those featured in this Hall of Fame include founders, famous faculty and alumni, and others who have provided extraordinary service to the university.
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Hall of Famer shown at right » Caldwell, Alfred
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2006 IIT Hall of Fame Inductee

Dr. John Rettaliata became president of IIT in 1952 at age 40—the youngest IIT president to date and, at the time, the youngest chief executive of a scientific school in the United States. Succeeding Henry Heald, Rettaliata held the position for 21 years. During his tenure, he oversaw the greatest growth period in the history of IIT: the Main Campus completed, Chicago-Kent College of Law added, Stuart School of Business founded, and IIT grow to be the biggest engineering school in the United States. While it was Mies van der Rohe’s design that made Main Campus the historical landmark it is today, Rettaliata's vision made the university a leader in science education.

Landscape designer, was an alumnus and a faculty member (1944–59 and 1981– 88) in the architecture, planning and design department. As a Prairie School landscape architect, he designed a number of Chicago’s parks.

A self-taught, principled practitioner who was fired from multiple jobs and who resigned in protest from one when Mies van der Rohe left IIT, Alfred Caldwell’s mark on the campus and on Chicago is lasting and living. As a landscape designer who began his work under the legendary Jens Jensen, Caldwell was both artist and architect. His commissions included public parks throughout the city, such as the Rookery in Lincoln Park Zoo and Promontory Point near Hyde Park, in addition to IIT’s campus. The plantings he chose to complement Mies’ buildings serve as a testament of the mutual esteem which the two men held for each other, even though his vision was never fully realized until the current Caldwell-inspired landscape plan put it into practice.

As Mies’ protégé, Caldwell was both student and colleague, being the first full-time faculty member hired by Mies to teach in the architecture department, even before he received the undergraduate degree Mies was to award to him. Continuing his formal studies for another three years, he received a master’s degree in city planning in 1948, at age 45. He taught from 1944 to 1959, returning to teach from 1981 until his death in 1988. Caldwell’s brilliance as an educator won him numerous teaching awards.

Caldwell was a steadfast advocate for the presence of greenspace within urban developments. Both in his role as an IIT faculty member and as an employee of the Chicago Department of City Planning, Caldwell influenced a generation of IIT-trained architects and planners.

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1892: Armour Institute is chartered; Gunsaulus becomes first president
1948: Farr Hall built
1963: Armour Research Institute changes its name to IIT Research Institute (IITRI)
1975: Engineering departments reorganized as Armour College of Engineering