LUDWIG
MIES VAN DER ROHE
Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies (March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969)
was a German-born American architect. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, along with Walter
Gropius and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters
of modern architecture. Mies, like many of his post World War I contemporaries,
sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times
just as Classical and Gothic did for their own eras. He created an influential
Twentieth-Century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity and simplicity.
His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and
plate glass to define austere but elegant spaces. He developed the use of exposed
steel structure and glass to enclose and define space, striving for an architecture
with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom
of open space. He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought
a rational approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design,
and is known for his use of the aphorisms “Less is more” and "God is in the
details". Mies van der Rohe died in 1969, and was buried near Chicago's other
famous architects in Uptown's Graceland Cemetery.
EARLY CAREER
Mies worked in his father's stone-carving shop and at several local design firms
before he moved to Berlin joining the office of interior designer Bruno Paul.
He began his architectural career as an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens
from 1908 to 1912, where he was exposed to the current design theories and to
progressive German culture. His talent was quickly recognized and he soon began
independent commissions, despite his lack of a formal college-level education.
A physically imposing, deliberative, and reticent man, Ludwig Mies renamed himself
as part of his rapid transformation from a tradesman's son to an architect working
with Berlin's cultural elite, adding the more aristocratic surname "van der
Rohe". He began his independent professional career designing upper class homes
in traditional Germanic domestic styles. He admired the broad proportions, regularity
of rhythmic elements, attention to the relationship of the manmade to nature,
and compositions using simple cubic volumes of the early nineteenth century
Prussian Neo-Classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, while dismissing the
eclectic and cluttered classical so common at the turn of the century.
TRADITIONALISM TO MODERNISM
After World War I, Mies began, while still designing traditional custom homes,
a parallel experimental effort in modernist design, joining his avant-garde
peers in the long-running search for a new style for a new industrial democracy.
The traditional styles had been under attack by progressive theorists since
the mid-nineteenth century, primarily for attaching ornament unrelated to a
modern structure's underlying construction. Their criticism gained substantial
cultural credibility after the disaster of World War I, widely seen as a failure
of the imperial leadership of Europe. The classical revival styles were particularly
reviled by many as the architectural symbol of a now-discredited aristocratic
system. Boldly abandoning ornament altogether, Mies made a dramatic debut with
his stunning competition proposal for the faceted all-glass Friedrichstrasse
skyscraper in 1921, followed by a curved version in 1922. He continued with
a series of brilliant pioneering projects, culminating in his two European masterworks:
the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition in 1929 (a reproduction
is now built on the original site) and the elegant Villa Tugendhat in Brno,
Czech Republic, completed in 1930.
While continuing his traditional design practice Mies began to work with the
progressive design magazine G which started in July 1923. He developed prominence
as architectural director of the Werkbund, organizing the influential Weissenhof
prototype modernist housing exhibition. He was also one of the founders of the
architectural association Der Ring.
His modernist thinking was influenced by the aesthetic credos of Russian Constructivism
with their ideology of "efficient" sculptural constructions using modern industrial
materials. Mies found appeal in the use of simple rectilinear and planar forms,
clean lines, pure use of color, and the extension of space around and beyond
interiors expounded by the Dutch De Stijl group. In particular, the layering
of functions in space and the clear articulation of parts as expressed by Gerrit
Rietveld appealed to Mies. Like other architects in Europe, Mies was enthralled
by the free-flowing spaces which encompass their outdoor surroundings and the
open floor plans of the American Prairie Style work of Frank Lloyd Wright. The
theories of Adolf Loos found resonance with Mies, particularly the ideas of
eradication of ornament and the casting off of the superficial, the use of unadorned
but rich materials, the nobility of anonymity, and an admiration for the unfettered
pragmatism of America. He joined the avant-garde Bauhaus design school as their
director of architecture, adopting and developing their application of simple
geometric forms in the design of useful objects.
SIGNIFICANCE AND MEANING
The self-educated Mies painstakingly studied the great philosophers and thinkers
of the past and of the day. He adopted an ambitious lifelong mission to create
not only a new style, but also a solid intellectual foundation for a new architectural
language that could be used to represent the new era of technological invention
and production. He saw a need for an architecture expressive of and in harmony
with his epoch, just as Gothic architecture was for an era of spiritualism.
He applied a disciplined design process using rational thought to achieve his
goal. He believed that architecture communicated the meaning and significance
of the culture in which it exists. More than perhaps any other practicing pioneer
of modernism, Mies used philosophy as a basis for his work.
THE UNITED STATES & THE SECOND CHICAGO SCHOOL
Opportunities for commissions dwindled with the worldwide depression after 1929.
In the early 1930s, Mies served briefly as the last Director of the faltering
Bauhaus, at the request of his friend and competitor Walter Gropius. After 1933,
Nazi political pressure soon forced Mies to close the government-financed school,
a victim of its previous association with socialism, communism, and other progressive
ideologies. He built very little in these years (one built commission was Philip
Johnson's New York apartment); his style was rejected by the Nazis as not "German"
in character. Frustrated and unhappy, he left his homeland reluctantly in 1937
as he saw his opportunity for any future building commissions vanish, accepting
a residential commission in Wyoming and then an offer to head an architectural
school in Chicago. When the refugee from the heavy-handed and constricting order
of the Nazi government arrived in the United States after 30 years of practice
in Germany, his reputation as a pioneer of modern architecture was already established
by American promoters of the international style. His architecture struck a
harmonious note with a progressive American sub-culture, and Frank Lloyd Wright
now had a serious competitor to his position as America's greatest living architect.
Mies settled in Chicago, Illinois where he was appointed as head of the architecture
school at Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute
of Technology - IIT). One of his conditions for taking this position was that
he would be commissioned to design the new buildings of the campus. Some of
his most famous buildings still stand there, including Alumni Hall and S.R.
Crown Hall, the home of IIT's School of Architecture. In 1944, he became an
American citizen, completing his severance from his native Germany. His 30 years
as an American architect reflect a more consistent and mature approach towards
achieving his goal of a new architecture for the 20th Century. He focused his
efforts on the idea of enclosing large open "universal" spaces with clearly
ordered structural frameworks, featuring manufactured steel shapes infilled
with glass. His early projects at the IIT campus and for developer Herb Greenwald
opened the eyes of Americans to a style that culturally resonated as a natural
progression of the almost forgotten 19th century Chicago School style. His architecture,
with origins in the socialist International style became an accepted mode of
building for large American corporations.
His most significant projects in the US include the residential towers of 860-880
Lake Shore Dr, the Farnsworth House, Crown Hall and other structures at IIT,
all in and around Chicago, and the Seagram Building in New York. These iconic
works became the prototypes for his other projects.
Between 1946 and 1951 Mies van der Rohe designed and built the Farnsworth House,
a weekend retreat outside Chicago for an independent professional woman, Dr.
Edith Farnsworth. Here, Mies explored the relationship between the individual,
man-made shelter, and nature. This masterpiece showed the world that exposed
industrial structural steel and glass were materials capable of great architecture.
The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox River,
surrounded by forest and rural prairies. The highly crafted pristine white structural
frame and all-glass walls define a simple rectangular interior space, letting
nature and light envelop the interior space. A wood paneled core (housing mechanical
equipment, kitchen, fireplace, and toilets) is positioned within the open space
to define the living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls to surround
rooms. No partitions touch the surrounding all-glass enclosure. Without solid
exterior walls, full-height draperies on a perimeter track allows freedom to
provide full or partial privacy when and where desired. The house has been described
as sublime, a temple hovering between heaven and earth, a poem, a work of art.
The Farnsworth House and its 60 acre wooded site was purchased at auction for
US$7.5 million by preservation groups in 2004 and is now operated by the Landmarks
Preservation Council of Illinois as a public museum. The influential building
spawned hundreds of modernist glass houses, most notably the Glass House by
Philip Johnson, located near New York City and now owned by the National Trust
for Historic Preservation. The iconic Farnsworth House is considered among Mies's
greatest works. The house is an embodiment of Mies' mature vision of modern
architecture: a minimal "skin and bones" framework provides an enclosure with
a clearly understandable order, counter-balanced by free-flowing open space
to suggest freedom of use, elegantly stated with clarity and simplicity, and
using materials that represent our times.
In 1958 Mies van der Rohe designed what has been regarded as the pinnacle of
the modern high-rise architecture, the Seagram Building in New York. Mies was
chosen by the daughter of the client, Phyllis Bronfman Lambert, who has become
a noted architectural figure and patron in her own right. The Seagram Building
has become an icon of the growing power of that defining institution of the
20th Century, the corporation. In a bold and innovative move, the architect
chose to set the tower back from the property line to create a forecourt plaza
and fountain on Park Avenue. Although now acclaimed and widely influential as
an urban design feature, Mies had to convince Bronfman's bankers that a taller
tower with significant "wasted" open space was a viable idea. Mies' design included
a bronze curtain wall with external H-shaped mullions that were exaggerated
in depth beyond what is structurally necessary, touching off a conversation
among some of his more zealous followers about whether Mies had or had not committed
Adolf Loos' "crime of ornamentation". Philip Johnson had a role in interior
materials selections and the plaza, and he designed the sumptuous Four Seasons
restaurant. The Seagram Building is said to be an early example of the innovative
"fast-track" construction process, where design and construction are done concurrently.
Using the Seagram as a prototype, Mies' office designed a number of modern high-rise
office towers, notably the Chicago Federal Center, which includes the Dirksen
and Klusinski Federal Buildings and Post Office (1959) and the IBM Plaza in
Chicago, the Westmount Square in Montreal and the Toronto-Dominion Centre in
1967. For the TD Centre he designed the font used on all the signage including
the concourse area. The signage was still used in 2007, although is slowly being
replaced as retailers update their store facades as leases turn over.
Mies also designed a series of four middle-income high-rise apartment buildings
for developer Herb Greenwald (and his successor firms after his untimely death
in a plane crash), the 860/880 and 900/910 Lake Shore Drive towers on Chicago's
Lakefront. These towers, with facades of steel and glass, were radical departures
from the typical residential brick apartment buildings of the time (interestingly,
Mies found their unit sizes too small for himself, choosing instead to continue
living in a spacious traditional luxury apartment a few blocks away). Again,
these towers became the prototype for many more apartment tower blocks across
the country designed by Mies' office.
During 1951-1952, Mies' designed the steel, glass and brick McCormick House,
located in Elmhurst, Illinois (15 miles west of the Chicago Loop), for real-estate
developer Robert Hall McCormick Jr. A one story adaptation of the exterior curtain
wall of his famous 860-880 Lake Shore Drive towers, it served as a prototype
for an unbuilt series of speculative houses to be constructed in Melrose Park,
Illinois. The house exists today as a part of the Elmhurst Art Museum.
Mies last work was the Neue Nationalgalerie art museum in Berlin. Considered
one of the most perfect statements of his architectural approach, the upper
pavilion is a precise steel framework with a glass enclosure, a simple pavilion
that is a powerful expression of his ideas about flexible interior space, open
and unencumbered by the external structural order. The campus of Whitney Young
High School and the adjacent Chicago Police Academy are two examples of the
influence van der Rohe had on Chicago architecture.
Furniture wise, Mies designed modern furniture pieces using new industrial technologies
that have become popular classics, such as the Barcelona chair and table, and
the Brno chair. His furniture is known for fine craftsmanship, a mix of traditional
luxurious fabrics like leather combined with modern chrome frames, and a distinct
separation of the supporting structure and the supported surfaces, often employing
cantilevers to enhance the feeling of lightness created by delicate structural
frames. During this period, he collaborated closely with interior designer and
companion Lilly Reich.
MIES AS AN EDUCATOR
Mies played a significant role as an educator, believing his architectural language
could be learned, then applied to design any type of modern building. He worked
personally and intensively on prototype solutions, and then allowed his students,
both in school and his office, to develop derivative solutions for specific
projects under his guidance. But when none was able to match the genius and
poetic quality of his own work, he agonized about where his educational method
had gone wrong.
Famous for his poetic aphorisms "Less is More" and "God is in the details,"
Mies sought to create free and open spaces, enclosed within a structural order
with minimal presence. Over the last twenty years of his life, Mies achieved,
and built, his vision of a monumental "skin and bones" architecture that reflected
his goal to provide the individual a place to fulfill himself in the modern
era.
Mies placed great importance on education of architects who could carry on his
design principles. He devoted a great deal of time and effort leading the architecture
program at IIT. Mies served on the initial Advisory Board of the Graham Foundation
in Chicago. His own practice was based on intensive personal involvement in
design efforts to create prototype solutions for building types (860 Lake Shore
Dr, the Farnsworth, Seagram, S.R. Crown Hall, The New National Gallery), then
allowing his studio designers to develop derivative buildings under his supervision.
Mies's grandson Dirk Lohan and two partners led the firm after he died in 1969.
Lohan, who had collaborated with Mies on the New National Gallery, continued
with existing projects but soon led the firm on his own independent path. Other
disciples continued his teachings for a few years, notably Gene Summers, David
Haid, Myron Goldsmith, Jaques Brownsom, Helmut Jahn, and other architects at
the firms of C.F. Murphy and Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
But while Mies' work had enormous influence and critical recognition, his approach
failed to sustain a creative force as a style after his death and was eclipsed
by the new wave of Post Modernism by the 1980s. He had hoped his architecture
would serve as a universal model that could be easily imitated, but the aesthetic
power of his best buildings proved impossible to match, instead resulting mostly
in drab and uninspired structures. The failure of his followers to meet his
high standard may have contributed to demise of Modernism and the rise of new
competing design theories, notably Postmodernism; alternatively, his disregard
for costs, context, and his clients' needs may have damaged Modernism's reputation
along with his own.