Established in 1919 by James Henry Breasted with the support of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures houses a museum and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. The building’s architects were from the late Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, of UChicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, who designed an adjacent site a few years earlier. Architecturally, both the chapel and the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures represent prime examples of the University’s modern Gothic style. Both employ the complex massing common to medieval buildings—and to Gothic Revival—but have exterior surfaces stripped to their taut, mostly unadorned skins.
Conservation Laboratory
In addition to displaying invaluable ancient Near Eastern artifacts in its galleries, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum also conserves material culture and determines the proper care and storage of ancient artifacts through the Conservation Laboratory.