The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago held a three-day festival in October to celebrate the building’s official launch, although the arts hub has been abuzz with life throughout various stages of construction since spring.

An 11-story tower anchors the design by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, providing a lofty view of the campus Midway to the musical and theatrical performers who will call the facility home. The two-story building that wraps around this pillar is a complex of theaters and performance spaces that rise to great heights of their own. An elegant and inconspicuous 474-seat auditorium sits mostly below grade, maintaining the podiums low profile.

The 184,000-square-foot building brings a performance hall, exhibition space, two theaters, a screening room, performance penthouse, classrooms, studios, rehearsal rooms, performance labs, a digital media center including editing suites, and a café to the university and is intended to be a resource for students and the wider artistic community alike. Against the backdrop of the university’s famously fraught town-gown relationship, this space for collaboration south of the Midway may prove to be a building block for a more amicable future.