Welcome to School of the Art Institute of Chicago

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Welcome

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Welcome to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the nation's most influential art and design school. Located in downtown Chicago, our world-class city is your living laboratory. With art, music, theater, fashion, and architecture at your disposal, you will be continually inspired. Before we get started, let me explain the many ways you can explore our beautiful space. -You can jump to the next stop by clicking on the "Next" button, or by clicking on the right side of your screen. -If you already know where you want to go, you can select any location by using the list OR by clicking directly on the map. -Lastly, remember that you can explore any particular location in more detail by clicking the floating icons.

Art Institute of Chicago

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Our own Art Institute museum, the 3rd largest art collection in the world, was founded by SAIC faculty, and is one of our greatest teaching resources. Whether studying modern painting, Asian or Oceanic art, or contemporary design, students are able to stand in front of pieces and study them rather than look at them on the screen in a classroom. Students, who pay no entrance fee, spend time here both in and outside of class discovering work that excites and challenges them.

Neiman Student Center, SITE Galleries, Flaxman Library - Sharp Building

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Our Sharp building houses our LeRoy Neiman student center and dining hall, Flaxman Library, Fiber and Material Studies, Graphic Design, and our first-year student Contemporary Practices department. This building has an instructional shop with hand and floor-mounted power tools, and a Media Center to check out tools and equipment reserved exclusively for first year students. It's also home to our SITE Sharp gallery, one of two professional gallery spaces run by our exhibitions program. Students are involved in every facet of the gallery's operation- from administration and program design to the selection of exhibitions, curating, marketing, installation and de-installation.

Dining Hall and Student Center

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SAIC's cafe in the LeRoy Neiman Center is a lively place to meet and dine with friends. We offer hot entrees and grab-and-go items, with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. The space also acts as a meeting space and is used for artist lectures, film screenings, open mic nights, informal critiques and other programming. Our Campus Life and Student Government/Programming offices are also located here, as well as a Student Leadership Suite where SAIC's student groups can hold activities and meetings.

Residence Hall

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162 N. State, located in Chicago's world-class theatre district, is a fifteen-minute walk to the farthest of our class buildings, and houses 500 students. Designed like loft apartments, rooms feature a kitchenette, private bathroom, and wi-fi. The building is equipped with 24-hour security. Common areas include 24-hour spaces including painting studios, a media and game room, computer lounge, laundry facilities, a gym, solarium, and spaces to study for exams, have informal critiques, or just hang out with friends. Students can also choose to stay in Jones Hall or the Buckingham, our other residence hall options, which offer similar amenities.

280 Building

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The 280 Building is physically attached to the Art Institute of Chicago museum. A number of studio departments are located here, as well as one of our student-run SITE galleries. This building also houses a woodshop, metal shop, foundry, mold-making shop, digital fabrication studio, and a full service cafeteria.

Painting and Drawing

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Painting and drawing classes, over 80 each semester, take place in our spacious, well-lit classrooms. Students develop technical and conceptual skills, and may take beginning painting practice classes to learn the fundamentals of painting, or craft their studies with topic-based multilevel classes like comics, figure drawing and painting, or materials and techniques classes. Our large and diverse faculty offer a range of expertise, from abstraction, expression and representational work and everything in between.

Photography and Printmaking

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Our photography department features over 2,000 square feet of editing workstations, scanners, and professional printers, a black-and-white darkroom, alternative processes and film developing facility, and shooting studio. Two advanced checkout centers provide access to a huge array of equipment. Printmaking facilities include intaglio relief presses, screen printing stations with two large format vacuum tables, lithography impression presses, a hand offset press, an offset studio with automated presses, artists' books/bookbinding studio and a fully equipped computer lab with workstations, scanners and large and medium format printers.

Sculp, Ceramics & Performance

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SAIC's sculpture department features digital fabrication areas, a woodshop, metal shop, foundry, mold-making shop, 3D visualization lab, and an outdoor organic garden, facilitating site-based projects, metal casting, mold-making, figure studies, and sustainable and science-related projects. Our Ceramics department includes mold-making and casting facilities, an extruder, slab roller, wheels, state-of-the-art gas and electric computer-automated kilns, and a 3D ceramic printer. Our performance department features a high-tech multi-use space, and studios that accommodates live action, performance installation, movement research, and interactive digital technologies.

Writing, Career + Professional Experience, Liberal Arts - Lakeview Building

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Our Career and Professional Experience office prepares and provides ongoing support for careers in art and design, and coordinates internship opportunities for students. Also in this building is our Liberal Arts department, offering courses in Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science, English, and Languages with a faculty of renowned writers, historians, philosophers, psychologists, scientists, and musicians. SAIC's writing program accommodates writers from a wide range of genres, including artists who work with text and image. The Wellness Center is also located in the Lakeview building, and includes counseling, health services and the Disability and Learning Resource Center.

MacLean Center (Film, Art and Tech, Sound)

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The MacLean Center houses our Film, Video, New Media and Animation and Art and Technology / Sound Practices departments, a ballroom used for student and special events, graduate painting and drawing studios, and a cafeteria with spectacular views of Lake Michigan and Millennium Park. This building also houses offices and classrooms for Liberal Arts, Art History, Theory, & Criticism, Arts Administration & Policy, and Visual and Critical Studies.

Film, Video, New Media, and Animation - MacLean Center

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SAIC's Film, Video, New Media and Animation department includes advanced HD editing suites, shooting studios, a green screen cyclorama studio, high-end graphics labs for 3D modeling and animation, and a checkout center for audio-visual equipment including cameras, projectors, lights, and microphones. Students can study digital 2D and 3D animation, nonfiction/documentary and narrative film and video, moving-image installation, hand-drawn animation, interactive art, VR, AR, and web-based projects.

Art and Technology / Sound Practices - MacLean Center

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The Art and Technology / Sound Practices department offers labs for bio-art, neon, kinetics, and electronics; modern and vintage technology including rare analog synthesizers and multichannel sound playback systems, high-quality analog and digital mixers and rare signal processors, fully-equipped sound studios and work stations, and an inventory of portable equipment, including systems for high-quality digital recording on location and space to create immersive, experimental virtual reality environments.

Art History

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Art History is an integral part of an artist's education, and SAIC offers both an undergraduate and graduate degree. In addition to world-class faculty, our students have access to the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, libraries and special collections including the Video Data Bank and Roger Brown Study Collection, and our numerous exhibition spaces. Art History classes often meet in our museum to examine works in person.

Fiber and Material Studies - Sharp Building

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The Fiber and Material Studies department features floor looms, TC-1 and Jacquard looms, sewing and knitting machines, dye and screenprinting facilities, a papermaking lab, a computer lab, and the Textile Resource Center, a hands-on study collection of textiles and artifacts from countries within Africa, Central and South Asia, Europe and the Americas, together with new technological substrates and materials. It also houses a library focused on instructional texts, fiber and craft theory texts, and historical texts.

Visual Communication Design- Sharp Building

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Our Visual Communication Design department facilities include the latest technology to educate 21st century graphic designers including large screen monitors, a resource room, fully equipped letterpress and type shop, and the SAIC Service Bureau -providing binding, papers, and large format printing. Students may study and combine focus areas including website design, digital production, package design, interface design, illustrations, identity systems, letterpress, book and print publications.

Fashion - Sullivan Center

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SAIC's Fashion department offers intense, interdisciplinary fashion design programs in which students emerge as skilled designers with an awareness of the social, political, and technological forces influencing 21st-century design. The Fashion Resource Center is open to all SAIC students, and is a unique resource for engaging in hands-on examination and research of a large collection of innovative garments and accessories from leading designers, plus contemporary and historical fashion publications, designer interviews, videos, and more.

Arch, Int.Arch, Des Obj.- Sullivan Center

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Housed within an historic building designed by Louis Sullivan, students have the opportunity to study architecture, interior architecture and designed objects. SAIC encourages experimentation with design at all levels, with state-of-the-art equipment, research libraries, and study collections. The Sullivan Fabrication Studio is a dedicated fabrication workshop, equipped with a full range of hand tools and industrial wood- and metal-working machines, plus a materials resale center. The department also houses our Advanced Output Center, which specializes in laser cutting and 3D digital scanning and printing.

Historic Preservation

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Our Historic Preservation graduate degree and 15 credit hour Historic Preservation Certificate focus on conserving the built environment with projects involving architecturally and historically rich Chicago area buildings. Coursework is offered in preservation planning, architectural history, building conservation, and design. Resources include a design studio, conservation and materials laboratory, resource library and student lounge.

Art Ed / Art Therapy / Visual Critical Studies

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SAIC offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in art education that meet the requirements for State of Illinois PreK–12 Visual Arts Professional Educator Licensure. Our Art Therapy department integrates learning in studio art, art therapy, and counseling with hands-on clinical experience with students completing the academic requirements for professional certification with the Art Therapy Credentials Board and the Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor exam in the state of Illinois. Visual and Critical Studies allows students to pursue in-depth academic study in the creative environment of an art school focusing on the cultural and social meaning of the visual experience.

SAIC Galleries

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The SAIC Galleries are part of a four-story gallery and studio space at SAIC's 33 E. Washington St. building, located in the heart of Chicago's Loop. The SAIC Galleries offer 26,000 square feet of exhibition space for annual student and faculty shows, as well as special exhibitions featuring national and international artists. This building also houses many of our graduate studios, three critique spaces, a lounge and flexible work area, and a student workshop.

Gene Siskel Film Center

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Located next to our 162 N. State Street Residences is the Gene Siskel Film Center. One of the largest and most comprehensive programs of its kind in the country, the Film Center presents premieres of new American and foreign films, revivals of classics, retrospectives, independent productions, and festivals of international scope, and features personal appearances by prominent filmmakers, critics, actors, and historians.

Graduate Studios

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Graduate students in our studio departments have access to individual studios across campus. Studios allow 24 hour entry and are situated around spacious open critique spaces, ideal for exhibiting work and taking part in ongoing conversations with peers. Annual open studio nights allow graduate students across campus the opportunity to share their work with the SAIC community.

Millennium Park

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SAIC is physically connected to Chicago's Millennium Park- downtown Chicago's gathering space, featuring Cloud Gate, a three-story steel sculpture by Anish Kapoor, that Chicagoans affectionately refer to as "the bean," and Crown Fountain, Jaume Plensa's video water sculpture produced with the assistance of SAIC students and faculty. Our students enjoy this space year-round, attending free concerts in the Gehry Bandshell, wandering the beautiful Lurie garden, ice skating during the winter, and scaling the climbing wall located in the adjacent Maggie Daley Park.

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