Taking his cue from Walter Gropius's 1924 Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, Saarinen introduced a glass skyway bridge over a street to connect his two metal and glass-sheathed rectangular boxes. The bridge consists of two thin slabs (roof and floor) with a fenestration of repeated metal-and-glass squares. The design of this bridge and the manner in which it is connected to the two buildings make it one of Iowa's most successful examples of a skyway.