Unique in both design and curriculum, IIT fills a campus that largely realizes the plan of master Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who came to direct the institute's architecture school in 1937 after fleeing Nazi Germany. The institute, formed in 1940 by the merger of the Armour and Lewis Institutes, has garnered an international reputation for excellence in the fields of technology and design. Today the institute enrolls more than 6,000 students, who attend classes on the 120-acre campus.