Named for Myron and Jacqueline N. Blank of Des Moines, the Blank Honors Center is home to the University Honors Program and the Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank Center for Gifted Education, which honors the work of Connie Belin, an Iowa educator and former member of the State Board of Regents. The building houses classrooms, offices, gathering spaces, and a food service area, as well as special meeting rooms devoted to the honors program. A connecting bridge links the center with the honors floor of the adjacent residence hall, Daum Hall.

A dark, monolithic glass-and-steel box, the building’s neo-Miesian aspects recall the International style. The machine aesthetic is everywhere in evidence, contrasting the simplicity of its design with the complexity of the program and the architect’s environment-friendly concept. (The Blank Honors Center is one of the first University buildings to incorporate aspects of “green architecture.”) The west-facing façade has a double-glazed curtain wall whose outermost screen functions as a filter reducing the effect of the afternoon sun without the use of solar baffles.

An aura of monumentality is conjured by a massive stone wall, which dominates the north elevation and rises above the roofline, laterally bisecting the building. The presence of this sheer masonry backdrop, the façade screen, and the absence of fuss coalesce in an Honors Center of austere elegance.