Illinois Institute of Technology, private, coeducational institution in Chicago, Illinois. The school was created in 1940 by the merger of two private colleges, the Armour Institute of Technology and the Lewis Institute. The Armour Institute was established in 1893 through an endowment by American businessman Philip Danforth Armour. It offered courses in engineering, architecture, chemistry, and library science. The Lewis Institute, founded in 1895, offered programs in the industrial arts and applied sciences. In 1949 the Illinois Institute of Technology added the Institute of Design, founded by Hungarian-American artist and educator László Moholy-Nagy. In 1969 the Illinois Institute of Technology merged with the Chicago-Kent College of Law. The Illinois Institute of Technology confers bachelor’s, master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees. It has academic programs in the arts and sciences, humanities, business, engineering, architecture, law, education, and the health professions. The school maintains four campuses in the Chicago area. The 49-hectare (120-acre) main campus in Chicago was designed by German American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who served as the head of the school’s architecture department from 1938 to 1958. The school’s research institutes include the National Center for Food Safety and Technology, the Center for Excellence in Polymer Science and Engineering, and the Center for Synchrotron Radiation Research and Instrumentation.