Mies Van Der Rohe The Built Works

Mies Van der Rohe
the built work

Mies Van der Rohe
the built work
Carsten Krohn
Birkhuser
Basel
Layout, cover design and typography:
Annette Kern, Hamburg
Copy editing and project management:

Henriette Mueller-Stahl, Berlin
Translation from German into English:

Julian Reisenberger, Weimar
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 8 Introduction
16 Riehl House
Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1908
20 Perls House
Berlin-Zehlendorf, Germany, 191112
24 Krller-Mller House, Faade Mock-up

Wassenaar, Netherlands, 191213
28 Werner House
32 Warnholtz House
Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany, 191415
33 Urbig House
35 Tombstone for Laura Perls

Berlin-Weiensee, Germany, 1919
36 Kempner House
40 Eichstaedt House
Berlin-Nikolassee, Germany, 192123
41 Feldmann House
Berlin-Grunewald, Germany, 192123
42 Ryder House
Wiesbaden, Germany, 192327
43 Gymnasium for Frau Buttes Private School

Potsdam, Germany, 192425
44 Mosler House
49 Urban House, Conversion

50 Housing on the Afrikanische Strae

Berlin-Wedding, Germany, 192527
56 Wolf House
Guben, Poland, 192527
57 Monument to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg

Berlin-Lichtenberg, Germany, 1926
58 Weienhofsiedlung Apartment Block

Stuttgart, Germany, 192627
62 Glass Room
Stuttgart, Germany, 1927
63 Samt und Seide Caf (Velvet and Silk Caf)

Berlin, Germany, 1927
64 Fuchs Gallery, Addition to the Perls House

5
68 Lange and Esters Houses 128 Crown Hall
Krefeld, Germany, 192730 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195056
76 Barcelona Pavilion 134 IIT Halls of Residence

International Exposition, Barcelona, Spain, 192829 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195155
81 German Electrical Industry Pavilion 136 Association of American Railroads Mechanical Laboratory
World Exposition, Barcelona, Spain, 1929 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195253
82 Tugendhat House 137 Commons Building

Brno, Czech Republic, 192830 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195254
88 Henke House, Addition 138 Electrical Engineering and Physics Building

Essen, Germany, 1930 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195456
89 Verseidag Factory 139 Association of American Railroads Engineering Laboratory

Krefeld, Germany, 193031, 1935 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195557
94 Model House for the Berlin Building Exposition 140 Siegel Hall
Berlin, Germany, 1931 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195558
95 Trinkhalle (Refreshment Stand) 142 Farnsworth House

Dessau, Germany, 1932 Plano, Illinois, USA, 194551
96 Lemke House 148 Promontory Apartments

Berlin-Hohenschnhausen, Germany, 193233 Chicago, Illinois, USA, 194649
102 Illinois Institute of Technology 152 Algonquin Apartments

Chicago, USA, 194158 Chicago, Illinois, USA, 194850
106 Minerals and Metals Research Building 153 Arts Club of Chicago
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194143, 195658 Chicago, Illinois, USA, 194851
111 Engineering Research Building 154 860880 Lake Shore Drive

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194346 Chicago, Illinois, USA, 194851
112 Perlstein Hall 159 McCormick House

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194447 Elmhurst, Illinois, USA, 195152
114 Alumni Memorial Hall 160 Greenwald House

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194546 Weston, Connecticut, USA, 195156
118 Wishnick Hall 161 Commonwealth Promenade Apartments

120 Central Vault 162 Esplanade Apartments

121 Institute of Gas Technology Building 166 Seagram Building

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194750 New York, USA, 195458
122 Association of American Railroads Research Laboratory 172 Lafayette Park

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194850 Detroit, Michigan, USA, 195558
123 Boiler Plant 178 Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194850 Newark, New Jersey, USA, 195860
124 Chapel 182 Bacardi Office Building

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194952 Mexico City, Mexico, 195861
126 Test Cell 184 One Charles Center

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195052 Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 195862
127 Mechanics Research Building 186 Lafayette Towers

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195052 Detroit, Michigan, USA, 195963
6
188 Federal Center
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 195974
192 Home Federal Savings and Loan Association

Des Moines, Iowa, USA, 196063
194 2400 Lakeview

196 Highfield House

Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 196264
202 Social Service Administration

University of Chicago, Illinois, USA, 196264
204 Meredith Hall

Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA, 196265
206 Science Center

Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 196268
208 Neue Nationalgalerie

Berlin-Tiergarten, Germany, 196268
216 Toronto-Dominion Centre

Toronto, Canada, 196369
220 Westmount Square

Montreal, Canada, 196468
224 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library

Washington, D.C., USA, 196572
226 Museum of Fine Arts

Houston, Texas, USA, 195458, 196574
228 Nuns Island Apartments

230 IBM Building

Chicago, USA, 196672
232 111 East Wacker Drive

234 Service Station

236 Subject Index

237 Illustration Credits
238 Chronological Bibliography

240 About the Author

7
Introduction Over the past few years, Ive often been asked: A book about
Mies what more is there to say? The idea for this project came
about during a vision to the Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments
in Newark, New Jersey, in October 2009. Several years earlier, an
artist in New York showed me a Super8 film of these buildings
which Id never heard of despite having read several books on
the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (18861969) and having
studied for a while in New York. I was sceptical perhaps Mies
had acted simply as a consultant. Years later, on the occasion of
a lecture I gave at Columbia University on urban utopias for Ber-
lin, I decided to pay the buildings a visit. I was surprised to find
the buildings were only 20minutes by train from New Yorks Penn
Station. The two monumental slabs can be seen rising into the
sky immediately behind Newark Broad Street Station in a district
that has a reputation as being unsafe. I was immediately smit-
ten by the view from the platform (see page 182, top): it was the
built embodiment of the vision that Ludwig Hilberseimer, an ur-
ban planner and close collaborator of Mies, had elaborated in
texts and images for Berlin. Only as I began to explore the com-
plex did I properly comprehend its urban dimensions, which are
defined by a third high-rise slab located some 600 metres further
away. It was a stormy day and the thin panes of glass in the still
original aluminium faade designed in Mies office vibrated
with shivering reflections of the clouds.
In the 50 years since they were built, the profile of the resi-
dents has shifted radically: originally built to house white mid-
dle-class workers, it is now almost exclusively occupied by Af-
rican American tenants. I asked the resident manager whether
they received many architecturally interested visitors and was told
that they had one visitor last year. The complex is evidently not
a popular destination for architecture tourists and as I would
later find out like many of Mies other built works, is relatively
unknown compared with his famous buildings such as the Bar-
celona Pavilion, the Seagram Building and in particular the un-
built projects such as the Skyscraper for the Friedrichstrae Rail-
way Station in Berlin.
In my numerous conversations with architects, theorists and
historians during my research for Das ungebaute Berlin, 1 Mies van
der Rohe emerged as the most important figure for the present
day. His work has been enormously influential for contemporary
architectural practice. He himself hoped that his work would be
judged by the degree to which others adopted the principles he
had developed. Rather than seeking a unique, individual form
of expression, he strove to find generally applicable principles:
I think the influence my work has on other people is based on
its reasonableness. Everybody can use it without being a copy-
ist, because it is quite objective, and I think if I find something
objective I will use it. It does not matter who did it.2 This ra-
tional approach differs markedly, for example, from that of Frank
Lloyd Wright, whose creations became ever more fantastic over
the course of his career. During the same period, Mies model
of a high-rise tower became an almost ubiquitous element of
many North American cities. They were seen as being timeless.
Today, in the context of the formal excesses of the last 15 years
and the drive to create ever more spectacular and eccentric ges-
tures, Mies focus on the elementary aspects of architecture has
once again gained relevance.
The more I saw and the more I read, the more I felt that the
image portrayed in the available literature was distorted. Re-
search on Mies has concentrated on his canonical works and
long been reluctant to consider all his buildings as equally sig-
nificant works in his oeuvre. In the first book published on Mies
in 1947, Philip Johnson writes: All the buildings and projects
which Mies considers in any way important are illustrated in this
volume, with the exception of a few buildings which were not exe
cuted according to his standards [].3 In actual fact only about
8
half of his European buildings are shown, and even the two later
volumes Mies in Berlin and Mies in America, published in 2001,
show only about half his buildings with photos.
When asked which of his buildings he felt was most important,

Mies responded simply that no single building stands out. 4
Taking him at his word, this volume sets out to document his
complete oeuvre of built works for the first time.5 Each build-
ing is documented in the same way one after the other so that
the whole represents a genealogy of built form. Without see-
ing this developmental process, it is impossible to categorically
conclude whether Mies work is characterised by radical changes
or continuity. Over the past few years I have visited and docu-
mented all of Mies surviving built works, in the process becom-
ing a photographer.
The book documents every one of Mies 80 realised buildings
and building complexes arranged in chronological order. Only
the buildings for the Illinois Institute of Technology are grouped
together in a block as they were conceived as a coherent ensem-
ble. Thirtyof the buildings marked in bold type in the table
of contents have been analysed and described in more detail.
The analysis of each building follows an identical three-stage
methodical structure.
To begin with, the building is documented as it was actually
built. The second section then documents any Later alterations
made to the building, while the third section examines the rele
vance of the results of the analysis for our view of Mies work and
contribution today. This third step The building as seen from
the present examines the built work not in relation to its gen-
esis in a historical context but in terms of its design from an ar-
chitectural standpoint.
While existing books on Mies consider both his built and un-
built work together, separating the significant work from the
insignificant, the intention here is to communicate an impres-
sion of the spatial dimension of the buildings as they are experi
enced by the user or visitor. The buildings are analysed with re-
spect to their relationship to place, how one moves through them,
the orchestration of light and visual axes as well as their material-
ity and tectonics. While Mies described building [as] giving form
to reality, 6 from a phenomenological viewpoint, we see these
buildings today not just as environments for living in but also as
buildings shaped by the reality of having been used. Almost all
of Mies buildings have been altered in some, not always imme-
diately perceptible, way or other. By looking back at his archi-
tecture from a contemporary perspective, we also consider them
in terms of the changes made, the different purposes they have
served as well as, in some cases, their destruction.
The documentation of the built works also enables us to ex-
amine the central themes that characterise Mies architecture.
The connection between indoors and outdoors, the articulation
of how the building meets the ground or the structural separa-
tion of column and wall are just some of the recurring themes in
his work. The continuity of the principles that Mies adhered to
connect his earlier and later work, even though they look quite
different on the outside. Mies strove to find simple but exem-
plary solutions for elementary transitions and junctions. For con
temporary architects, it is interesting to study how Mies resolved
junctions between different materials and transitions from mono
lithic walls to glazed surfaces, the different forms that the corners
of buildings take in different constellations or how compact cores
have been placed in open-plan layouts. Mies created closed and
open flowing spaces, and was also not afraid to combine dif-
ferent spatial concepts.
The spatial arrangement of the buildings is shown using floor
plans and site plans, which instead of showing an idealised plan
from the design phase show the situation as built. All of the plans
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Reconstruction of the garden Hall, reconstruction of the original 9
Riehl House, Neubabelsberg 1908 faade, photomontage colour scheme
have been redrawn by myself, based on the working drawings. the respective ideological climate. For example, the attitude to-
Because many of Mies American buildings were built in collabor wards vast apartment blocks has changed fundamentally since
ation with other architecture offices, many of the relevant work- the 1960s when the Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments were
ing drawings are not in the Mies van der Rohe Archives of the built. Past research also sidelined certain projects. Mies per-
Museum of Modern Art in New York nor in the various published sonal path to radical modernism was, for example, by no means
volumes of The Mies van der Rohe Archive. The architecture of- as linear as it is often portrayed. The conventional houses that
fices responsible for the restoration of Mies buildings were most Mies built during the 1920s some of them after publishing a
helpful, as were public records, building surveys and the archives series of avant-garde projects in the press were deemed sim-
of the owners. The existing monographs on Mies almost exclu- ply bread-and-butter work.7 In her book Mies in America, Phyllis
sively show cleaned presentation drawings without legends or Lambert attempts to highlight the works where Mies himself was
dimensions, partly because the information contained within the more intensely involved in the design process. Mies, however,
working drawings becomes illegible when reduced in size and stated that: I dont make every building different. 8
the plans themselves become harder to read. To reconstruct the
drawings, historical photographs as well as the buildings them- Mies own standpoint was influenced by the particular course of
selves proved to be an invaluable source. his career. Ludwig Mies he added van der Rohe later did not
The formal presentation of the newly drawn floor plans ech- study as an architect 9 but learned his trade from scratch work-
oes the reductive character of the plans that Mies published. Al- ing in practice: I learned from my father. He was a stonemason.
though he highlighted the objective character of his principles, [] My father said, Dont read these dumb books. Work. 10 Al-
the resulting work and the drawings of them are often idiosyn- though he did develop a strong interest in philosophical writ-
cratic. The new floor plans published here contain only what is ings and published texts of his own, Mies would always empha-
absolutely necessary and aim to be as consistent as possible, sise the enormous influence of his background as a craftsman in
lending them an objective character. Furnishings, paving pat- Aachen on his personal development. The discipline he applied
terns, vegetation, the arcs of door openings, directions of stairs to developing the building construction can be seen in the ex-
and ramps as well as the labelling of the individual rooms have treme attention he gave to the details. This precision contrasts
all been omitted in favour of showing the building structure as markedly with the later works of Le Corbusier and Walter Gro-
clearly as possible. The built elements of external landscaping pius and is one of the reasons for his lasting influence to the
and gardens designed by Mies, some of which have been recon- present day. Even after more than half a century, few buildings
structed from aerial photographs, are also shown. around the world can claim to be detailed to the same exacting
The plans have been drawn consistently to a scale of 1:400 level of quality as the Seagram Building. Its clarity of expression
and oriented north. Ensembles of buildings are shown at a scale set a benchmark that many contemporary buildings still fail to
of 1:4000 and details at a scale of 1:10. Each building is shown measure up to.
with at least one floor plan or site plan. Because relevant plans Looking back, Mies described the development of his work
were not always available, not all buildings are illustrated with a as a persistent path of striving for clarity of construction. His
floor plan. The drawings comprise lines and surfaces all drawn obsessive search for order means that his work can be seen as
with the same line thickness. an ongoing process of optimisation. His high-rise towers are
The photographs take an analytical view of the respective in principle essentially identical skeleton frame constructions
buildings and concentrate predominantly on the built structures, that permit an open-plan floor plan, but he refined the detail-
leaving out later conversions, current uses or changed urban sur- ing with each new building. While the early apartment blocks
roundings wherever possible. The focus lies on the building sub- on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago exhibit numerous deficits with
stance and the detailing, as well as the placement of the build- respect to their building physics, the later towers resolved many
ing in the landscape. Both the earlier private houses as well as of these problems. Ironically, although the quality of the con-
the later high-rise towers were placed at prominent positions, struction of the later buildings is much better, in history books
usually adjoining a park or a lake. For the Lafayette Park Estate, they are regarded as being less architecturally significant than
for example, it took decades for the trees to grow to maturity. the earlier prototypes.
The photos show that the architecture has transcended time. When Mies said, I always apply the same principles,11 he
In cases where buildings have been altered to such a degree that was referring to rational aspects that can be taught and analysed.
the original conception is no longer visible for examples the The building analyses in this book elaborate the principles that
garden faade of Mies very first work, the Riehl House the orig- Mies sought to communicate as a teacher: You can teach stu-
inal situation can be shown by means of a photographic montage. dents how to work; you can teach them technique how to use
Another approach is to colourise black-and-white photographs reason; you can even give them a sense of proportions of or-
to show the original colour scheme. Thomas Ruff, for example, der. You can teach general principles. 12
created a series of photographs of Mies works that consciously In the 1920s, Mies presented five speculative projects two
manipulates new and historic photographs. Digital techniques glass skyscrapers, an office building, and two country houses, one
have greatly simplified the retouching of photographs, and such made of ferro-concrete, the other of brick that explored the
techniques are now common practice in architectural photogra- constructional possibilities of particular building materials. With
phy. The photographs in this book have not been retouched and the exception of the Skyscraper on the Friedrichstrae, none of
have a strictly documentary character. the projects were designed for a specific location. They were in-
Although most of Mies buildings are now listed, the build- stead programmatic, visionary concepts that explored a prin-
ing substance is still in danger of being lost during renovation ciple to the point that the images acquired an iconic charac-
works. Many typical Miesian elements, such as his minimalist bal- ter. In his floor plan for a skyscraper with polygonal curves that
ustrades, do not conform to current building regulations and are aimed to achieve a rich play by the reflection of light13 he did
thus often the target of modernisation measures. Other build- not show the supporting structure at all. Similarly, his floor plan
ings, such as the IIT Test Cell from 195052, simply stood in the for the brick country house is more abstract and schematic in
way of new building projects and were demolished. Built situa- character than a floor plan for a real building. The diagrammatic
tions are not the only aspects that change over time; so too does character of these designs is significant because it would later
the appreciation of architecture, which in turn is influenced by influence his built work.
10
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
Glass skyscraper, 1922, floor plan Project for a brick country house, 1924, floor plan introduction 11
4
3 9
1 2 10
5 7
11
12
1 Vestibule
2 Hall
3 Salon
4 Dining room
5 Gentlemans study
6 Living room
7 Anteroom
8 Ladys quarters
9 Exhibition gallery
10 Garden with fountain
11 Greenhouse
12 Water basin
Peter Behrens, Krller-Mller House,

12 Proposal from 1911, ground floor plan
Despite the vehemence with which Mies opposed individual- Schinkel and Hendrik Petrus Berlage whose honest construc-
istic solutions, the buildings he created were very often unique tions he greatly admired.
and he was commonly regarded as an artist. The rational prin- But Mies also designed furniture, some of it permanent fit-
ciples that he propagated were more a means to an end, as he tings for the respective building, or else chairs and armchairs,
believed strongly in the spiritual dimension of architecture. The which he patented. He designed showroom apartments and ex-
problem of architecture has always been the same throughout hibitions, and also converted existing buildings, including an out-
time. Its authentic quality is reached through its proportions, and building in Potsdam 20 and a factory in Berlin-Steglitz for the Bau-
the proportions cost nothing. In fact, most of them are propor- haus School, which he headed at the time. Although this book
tions among things, not the things themselves, he said, adding, does not document the entirety of Mies creative endeavours,
Art is almost always a question of proportions.14 it does bring a large part of his built oeuvre out of the shadows
Proportion can also be understood in broader terms as a re- and back into the limelight.
lationship, for example between people and their built or natural While Mies and his biographers portrayed his career as a lin-
environment. Wolf Tegethoff has written about the proportions in ear path of development, it is in reality highly complex. Although
Mies buildings: A demonstrable, calculable system of propor- he never saw himself as an urban designer, he often designed
tions underlying the plans whether of a rational or geometrical the spaces between groups of buildings. And while he strove to
nature is [] in no single case apparent. [] Rather the suspi- achieve buildings of great simplicity, the constructions this en-
cion arises that mathematical or geometrical correspondences in tailed were often exceptionally complex. Similarly, he had a very
the ground plan were deliberately avoided, even when they ap- pragmatic attitude to the possibilities offered by new industrial
peared to be perfectly justified from a structural point of view. 15 production methods, but was at the same time firmly rooted in
Tegethoffs analysis, however, did not consider Mies early work. the traditions of classical architecture. He defined rules by which
The recently discovered building records of the Warnholtz House he worked and was highly disciplined about adhering to them,
include a ground floor plan that shows a salon measuring exactly and at the same time produced a remarkably varied repertoire of
5 by 7.5 metres, a vestibule of 3 by 4 metres, a veranda of 4 by 5 solutions. And while his work can be clearly divided into a Euro
metres and a library that is precisely 4 by 3 metres. pean and an American phase, many aspects of his early work of-
These whole number proportions, which can also be seen ten paved the way for what came later. In this book, I have at-
in some of Mies other buildings, were also characteristic of the tempted to explicitly identify these references to emphasise the
floor plans of the architect and designer Peter Behrens, in whose coherence of his work: while his individual buildings may be sty-
atelier Mies worked from 1908 to 1912 with the exception of a listically different, they exhibit structural similarities. But what
brief pause in between. Although Mies had previously learned seems most contradictory today is the influence of Mies work
his trade while working for Bruno Paul, Behrens would become a on architectural production over the years, and the large number
central figure for his development: We were more Behrens-like of soulless buildings that have resulted. While Mies expounded
than Behrens himself,16 as he recalls. The clear proportions of many principles, they were for him never more than a means of
Behrens rooms can be seen, for example, in his design for the striving to reach a higher spiritual order.
Krller-Mller House, which Mies also worked on; Mies was later
commissioned to draw up a design of his own based on the same 1 Carsten Krohn (ed.), Das ungebaute Berlin (Unbuilt Berlin), Berlin 2010.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Graeme Shankland, in:
requirements. In the linear succession of representative spaces,
The Listener, 15 Oct. 1959, p. 620.
from the dining room to the salon and from the hall to the gen- 3 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, New York 1947, p. 7. The sentence
tlemans study, the proportions of the rooms in Behrens design ends: and some projects of the 19101914 period which were destroyed
alternate between 3:4 and a square. The proportions of the hall, in the bombing of Berlin. Nothing, however, is known of projects from this
for example, can be seen by examining the position of the beams period that were destroyed. The Warnholtz House, built 191415, was only
demolished in 1960.
on the ceiling. Mies, however, was averse to designing perfectly
4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Katharine Kuh, in:
square spaces, and he only found a legitimate case to do so for Saturday Review, 23 Jan. 1965, p. 22.
a freestanding pavilion with four identical faades that face in 5 Almost all his buildings are shown in: Yehuda E. Safran, Mies van der
the four directions of the compass. Rohe, Lisbon 2000, but without floor plans.
Mies declared a dislike for the word design: It means 6 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Notes to Lectures, 1950, in: Fritz Neu-
meyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cam-
everything and nothing. Many believe they can do everything,
bridge, Mass., 1991, p.328.
from designing a comb to planning a railway station , the result 7 For further information on the reception of the houses built between
is that nothing is good. He, on the other hand, was only inter- 1921 and 1926, see: Andreas Marx and Paul Weber, Konventionelle Kon-
ested in building.17 This opinion set him apart from his teach- tinuitt Mies van der Rohes Baumanahmen an Haus Urban 192426. An-
lass zu einer Neuinterpretation seines konventionellen Werkes der 1920er
ers Bruno Paul and Peter Behrens, both of whom were trained
Jahre, in: Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.), Mies van der Rohe:
artists who had taken up architecture auto-didactically. They ap-
Frhe Bauten Probleme der Erhaltung, Probleme der Bewertung (Mies
proached building not from the construction but from the form van der Rohe Early Built Works: Problems in their conservation and
and the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Mies recalls that, Behrens a ssessment), Petersberg 2004, pp. 163178.
had a great sense of the great form. That was his main interest; 8 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Ulrich Conrads in 1964,
produced on a phonograph record: Mies in Berlin, Bauwelt.
and that I certainly understood and learned from him. How-
9 He studied from June 1907 to May 1908 at the education department of
ever, he was also critical: It then became clear to me that it was the Berlin Museum of Applied Arts (Kunstgewerbemuseum) under Bruno
not the task of architecture to invent form. I tried to understand Paul. See also Thomas Steigenberger, Mies van der Rohe ein Schler
what that task was. I asked Peter Behrens, but he could not give Bruno Pauls? in: Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.), Mies van der
me an answer. He did not ask that question. 18 This discrepancy Rohe: Frhe Bauten Probleme der Erhaltung, Probleme der Bewertung
(Mies van der Rohe Early Built Works: Problems in their conservation and
was also the source of an altercation with a colleague in Bruno
assessment), Petersberg 2004, pp. 151162.
Pauls office. Later, we had a falling out, because I said that 10 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: John Peter, The Oral History of Modern
Bruno Paul was more of an interior designer than an architect. Architecture. Interviews with the Greatest Architects of the Twentieth
Our argument grew increasingly vocal. He mounted a full defence Century, New York 1994, p. 156, 158.
of Bruno Paul and I did precisely the opposite. I told him that 11 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Katharine Kuh, in:
Saturday Review, 23 Jan. 1965, p. 61.
what he did had nothing to do with architecture.19 When asked
12 Ibid., p. 23.
to name architects that inspired him, Mies cited Karl Friedrich
introduction 13
13 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in: Frhlicht, vol. 4, 1922, p. 124.
14 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Bayerischer Rundfunk
(Bavarian Broadcasting), in: Der Architekt, 1966, p.324.
15 Wolf Tegethoff, Mies van der Rohe The Villas and Country Houses,
New York 1985, pp. 7778.
16 Stanford Anderson, Considering Peter Behrens: Interviews with Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe (Chicago, 1961) and Walter Gropius (Cambridge, Mass.,
1964), in: Engramma, no. 100, Sep./Oct. 2012. www.engramma.it.
17 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Christian Norberg-
Schulz, in: ditions de lArchitecture dAujourdhui, Luvre de Mies van
der Rohe, Paris 1958, p. 100.
18 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Moiss Puentes (ed.), Conversations with
Mies van der Rohe, New York 2008, p. 54.
19 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Dirk Lohan, transcribed
manuscript, Mies van der Rohe Archive, Museum of Modern Art, New York
(translated into English by JR).
20 Cf. Andreas Marx and Paul Weber, Zur Neudatierung von Mies van der
Rohes Landhaus in Eisenbeton, in: Architectura, vol. 2, 2008, p. 160.
14 introduction
Riehl House Although the house for a philosophy professor is situated in a col
Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1908 ony of villas in what is now Potsdam, Mies noted that the house
was not a villa. Rather, its character resembled the houses in the
Mrkische region, like those in Werder which have a simple pitched
roof, a gable and a pair of dormers, usually of the eyebrow kind.1
Despite the modest appearance of the building, the basic typo-
logy has been significantly modified and reinterpreted. Rather than
arranging the long side parallel to the street, as is typical for this
house type, the building is rotated by 90 degrees and turns away
from the street, a gesture reinforced by the wall along the front.
Mies introduced a large step in the terrain of the steep slop
ing site to create a plinth on which the building stands, affording
a view of the Griebnitzsee lake. Both parts, the house and the
plinth, are fused to form a single structure. On entering the gar-
den, one is immediately drawn into the architectural composition,
as the upper terrace is already part of the constellation. Enclosed
by a perimeter wall, the garden has a cloister-like intimacy that
continues into the interior of the building.
In the centre of the house, Mies took the bold step at this early
juncture in his career of creating a general space, a term that
was used in a prominent publication of the day to denote a room
with no specific function.2 In the book in question, such halls are
described simply as the central room of the house, followed by
a detailed elaboration of their composition:
Even in small houses halls always have a fire-place. Halls are
furnished and their floors are carpeted. Wood panelling is the fa-
vourite treatment for walls, indeed it is considered the ideal dec
oration. [] In all circumstances, the hall is not permitted to rise
through two storeys []. The floor may be composed of [] a hard
wood. All-over carpeting is avoided []. But there is always a deep-
piled, warm rug in the centre and a thick one in front of the fire [].
[Where the staircase leads out of the hall], architects are reluctant
to expose the whole flight to view and permit only the first few
steps to be seen. [] In the [] country-house it is concealed be-
cause it leads only to the bedrooms, which are considered to be
private. [] There are certain pieces of furniture [] that reappear
in every kind of hall. These include a heavy hall-table and a settle.
[] English round gate-legged tables are very popular as hall-
tables. [] In smaller halls, there will be merely several wooden
chairs and a wooden settle.3
Mies use of a general space of the kind described here by
Hermann Muthesius does not necessarily imply that he was aware
of this text, or that it was a creation of his own devices: by then
this arrangement had become an established pattern a typo-
logy of sorts.
Although this central space was rather austere, especially when
the doors were closed, it was also spacious, a quality that Muthe-
sius deemed characteristic for this type of room. By arranging the
space so that it opens directly onto the loggia with a panoramic
view of the lake and the woodland beyond, the hall is transformed
into an architectural set-piece. On entering the room, visitors initi-
ally face the stairs, but a change in direction toward the light en-
sures that one only sees the first few steps. A door on the landing
signals unequivocally that what lies behind is private.
The floor plan of the house is organised in such a way that,
when the doors are open, one can see outside from this central
hall in several directions. A company of guests seated at the din
ing table would each have a view outdoors wherever they sat, and
all the visual axes cross in a star-shape at the centre of the room.
All of this lends the building as a whole an extremely open im-
pression. Two alcoves adjoining the hall can be separated off by
curtains, creating different situations: one more intimate and one
more open. The same opposition can also be seen in the diffe-
rent faces of the house: the introverted side facing the street and
the extroverted side facing the private garden.
16 Ground floor plan

Views from the street 17
Later alterations to the building 1 From a conversation with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the documentary
The house was renovated in 2001.4 The garden wall, balcony, flat film Mies van der Rohe by Georgia van der Rohe, 1986.
2 Hermann Muthesius, Das Englische Haus, Berlin 1904, vol. 3 (English-lan-
tile roofing and chimney are all reconstructions. The enclosure of
guage edition: Hermann Muthesius, The English House. Volume III: The
the loggia with perimeter glazing, which had been undertaken at Interior, London 2007).
an earlier date, was retained and the original condition was not 3 Ibid., pp. 170173.
reinstated. The original enclosed staircase and dumb waiter was 4 The house was renovated by the architects Heiko Folkerts together with
conservation consulting from Jrg Limberg. See the contribution by Fol-
replaced with an open staircase and the entrance door was chan-
kerts and Limberg in: Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.), Mies
ged. Most of the original fittings, with the exception of a few ele- van der Rohe: Frhe Bauten Probleme der Erhaltung Probleme der
ments in the attic, have also been lost. As the original planning Bewertung, Petersberg 2004, pp. 2755.
records and working drawings no longer exist and the published 5 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Ulrich Conrads in 1964,
plans are idealised plans that differ from the building survey, it is produced on a phonograph record, Mies in Berlin, Bauwelt, Berlin 1966.
6 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Manuscript of a radio broadcast on 17 Aug.
not possible to conclusively determine the original plans of the
1931, in: Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the
lower floor and attic. Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 311.
7 Gottfried Semper, Die vier Elemente der Baukunst, Braunschweig 1851,
The building as seen from the present p. 57 (The Four Elements of Architecture, Cambridge, Mass. 2011).
This general space that Mies created right at the beginning of his
career marks the first use of what Mies would later term universal
space: an architecture independent of a specific function. As he
explained, I have always liked large rooms in which I can do as I
please []. I said: Make your spaces big enough, man, so that you
can walk around in them freely, and not just in one predetermined
direction! [] We dont know at all whether people will do with
them what we expect them to. Functions are not so clear or so
constant; they change faster than the building.5
Mies had evidently wished to achieve precisely this spatial con-
stellation and precisely these proportions. The ratio of the width to
length of the hall is 2:3, as is the ratio of the height to width. The
alcoves adjoining the hall have the same proportions, as does the
entrance vestibule and the windows and opening onto the loggia.
From his later buildings, we know that Mies never left the propor-
tions to chance, declaring that the artistic expresses itself in the
proportions.6 His floor plan, however, could only be achieved
with considerable constructional effort, as the spatial disposition
conflicted with the structure of the building. The dimensions and
orientation of the hall could only be achieved without the use of
columns by employing a concealed supporting construction. Hid-
den columns bear a hidden I-beam on which the transverse ga-
ble wall of the upper storey rests. This expensive supplementary
construction shows how far Mies was from his later ideal of struc-
tural clarity. But it also shows how uncompromisingly he wished
to realise this particular plan within the confines of this unassum-
ing building type.
The Riehl House can also be analysed according to Gottfried
Sempers theory of the four elements of architecture. In the nine-
teenth century, Semper characterised architecture according to
four primordial elements hearth, roof, enclosure and mound
each of which he related to a specific material. In the Riehl House,
the hearth is related to the materials metal and ceramics out of
which the fireplace is made. Although this is actually just a ra-
diator screen, its altar-like treatment and placement lend it the
status of a fireplace. With regard to the enclosure, Semper noted
that the word Wand [wall] has the same root as Gewand [gar-
ment]. They describe the textile or fabric of the walls that clothe
the space.7 Even when walls were later made of masonry, pa-
nelled with wood or clad with sheets of marble, Semper argued
that they still represented a non-structural enclosure that derived
from the textile fabric of old. Although only visible in the tectonic
articulation, and only hinted at discreetly, the principle of the sep
aration of structure from non-structural infill is visible in the fine
profiling of the pilasters of the faade. On the garden frontage,
these infill panels are actually omitted in a manner akin to a half-
timbered structure. Finally, this elemental approach to the building
design is most apparent in its relationship to the topography: the
building is firmly anchored with the site by a substantial mound.
18
Birds eye view riehl House 19
Perls House Although the house takes the form of a decidedly compact block,
Berlin-Zehlendorf, Germany, 191112 its design is dictated by a desire to relate the interior to the gar-
den. The straightforward and unassuming impression one has of
the building from the street belies the complexity of the circula-
tion within and the many-layered system of visual axes that con-
nect the indoors with outdoors.
A curved recess in the garden fence serves as an inviting ge-
sture, drawing the visitor through the gate and directing them
toward the asymmetrically placed entrance to the house. Alt-
hough the entrance vestibule is located in the corner of the buil-
ding like the house itself in the north corner of the site , one
has views from this first room in all directions. Several visual axes
pass through the house and cross at the point where the visitors
route into the house divides, one way leading on to the represen-
tative rooms, the other to the private areas. When the doors are
open, one has a view from this point in the entrance hall of the
entire ground floor with views beyond into the garden. Adjoining
the study of the houses owner, a lawyer and art collector, is the
central dining room with a long room for making music beyond.
In the plan, a further rounded element, the bottom step of the
stairs, serves as a similar inviting gesture encouraging people to
move through the house.
Mies, then 25 years of age and working in Peter Behrens ar-
chitecture office, told the client, who was the same age as him,
that, The architect must get to know the people who will live in
the planned house. From their needs, the rest inevitably follows. Of
course, in addition to the wishes of the client, the position, orien-
tation and size of the plot also play an important role in determin
ing the final plan of the house. The where and how of the ex-
terior then follows naturally from all of that.1 As the building was
to house a collection of artworks, the rooms of the ground floor
have a representative character while the bedrooms and childs
room, as well as the bathroom, closet and guest rooms, are loca-
ted on the upper floor. The lower ground, which opens onto a nar-
row yard to the north, houses the kitchen, washroom and a maids
room. Thanks to a steep slope, the two-storey building appears
as if it has three storeys on the north side.
The clear proportions of the rooms in the interior are reflected
in the outdoor areas. The ratio of length to height of the house cor-
responds to the Golden Section, echoing Karl Friedrich Schinkels
Altes Museum. Two different gardens, each the same width as
the house, are related directly to the building. The first of these
is enclosed on three sides by a plant-covered wooden pergola
and reached directly from the loggia, itself a transitional zone ex-
tending deep into the building. The second part of the garden, a
sunken rectangular court, also relates directly to the faade. Five
floor-to-ceiling French windows open extrovertly onto the gar-
den presenting a panoramic view of the surroundings. A single
step leads from the house into the garden, and from there a small
stair on into the sunken garden terrace. A figurative sculpture was
placed in the garden, its position as marked in the plans of the
garden aligning with the main axis of the house. The sculpture
marks the end of this axis and helps to maximise the spacious im-
pression of this otherwise modest-sized house.
Later alterations to the building

The house as it exists today represents a partial reconstruction after
significant alterations had been made. The landscaping of the gar-
den was lost and has not been reinstated by the current owner, an
anthroposophical school. The house first changed hands not long
after its completion. Hugo Perls, a lawyer, art historian and later
a Plato scholar, gave the house in exchange for five paintings by
Max Liebermann to Eduard Fuchs, a founder member of the com-
munist party and also an art collector. Between 1927 and 1928,
Fuchs added a gallery wing, also designed by Mies, but was forced
to flee Germany five years later when his house, along with his
First floor plan

Ground floor plan
20 View from the garden
Garden faade 21
Loggia from the garden
22 Loggia
notable collection of erotic art, was seized by the SS. After years that provide an indication of the original condition of the building. For
of dereliction, the house was converted under the direction of Al- further information on the renovation, see: Dietrich von Beulwitz, The
Perls House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Architectural Design,
bert Speer into a secret facility for the production of instruments
vol. 11/12, 1983.
and gauges for retaliatory weapons (V-rockets). After the war, the 3 Ibid, p. 63.
company continued to flourish producing technical medical equip- 4 Cf. Philip Johnson 1947, p. 14; Blake 1960, p. 160; Spaeth 1985, p. 22.
ment from the house until the end of the 1970s. 5 Fritz Neumeyer, Space for Reflection: Block versus Pavilion, in: Franz
Schulze (ed.), Mies van der Rohe Critical Essays, New York 1989, pp.
The windows and doors were changed and the loggia was
164165.
closed off. Extensions were built, encasing the original building like
a second skin. A single photograph remains of the house directly
after its completion showing an idealised view from a perspective
that matched Mies own presentation drawings and echoed those
of Schinkel. Dietrich von Beulwitz, who was entrusted with the ren
ovation, relied heavily on recollections of the building by Philip
Johnson, who had studied the building intensively before the al-
terations were undertaken and was able to describe the original
tones of colour used.2 Von Beulwitz described the difficulties he
had because modern plaster and paint, all industrial products,
are quite different from the old materials. The building was origi-
nally rendered with a plaster of slaked lime and a lime paint put
on al fresco and combining with the plaster, rubbing off slightly
over the course of time and giving a particularly lively effect.3
The building as seen from the present

The entire design hinges around the position of the dining ta-
ble in the geometric centre of the house. It is at this central point
that the two primary axes that connect the house and garden in-
tersect at right angles to one another, and where other, diagonal
sight lines cross before continuing on into the greenery outside.
This star-shaped constellation of axes affords a panoramic view
of the natural surroundings, uniting indoor and outdoor space in
a single spatial concept. The compact form of the house exhibits
a sparing sobriety and geometric rigour that is also to be found
in the proportion of the rooms. The central room around the din
ing table has the proportions 2:3, extending to become almost a
square when the windows to the loggia are opened. This tension
between the buildings geometric precision and expansive sense
of space informs the character of the building.
After a long period in which the house was accorded little at-
tention by scholars of Mies, with the exception of repeated refer
ences to the influence of Schinkel,4 it was eventually recognised
as containing early indications of characteristics that were to de-
velop in Mies later work. For Fritz Neumeyer, one particular detail
reveals one of Mies central themes: the expression of a clear and
rational construction. Slots, one centimetre thick, are cut into the
side walls of the loggia, articulating the corners visually as load-
bearing columns. This small detail indicates the autonomy of the
tectonic skeleton,5 argued Neumeyer, introducing a further inter-
pretation of the building: the loggia could be read as a pergola
that has been inserted into the building.
The loggia has a pivotal function. As a transitional space, it links
indoors with outdoors. It is part of the house when seen as an ex-
tension of the interior, and part of the garden when regarded as a
continuation of the pergola that encompasses the outdoor space.
The transition between indoors and outdoors is articulated
both through the precise placement of the openings as well as the
continuous step from the music room to the garden. Although very
discreet, this detail, in combination with the other steps leading
down to the sunken court with the sculpture, lends the passage
of movement a noticeable sense of descent. This in turn creates
the impression that the house rests on a raised podium. In his la-
ter works, Mies also positioned sculptures outdoors in such a way
that they relate to the interior, heightening its impression of space.
1 As recalled by Hugo Perls in: Warum ist Kamilla schn? Von Kunst, Knst-
lern und Kunsthandel, Munich 1962, p. 16.
2 Von Beulwitz assembled a collection of all the documents he could find
perls Ho u se 23
Krller-Mller House, Faade Mock-up
Wassenaar, Netherlands, 191213
destroyed
2 4
3 8
1 Vestibule
2 Hall
3 Dining room
4 Corridor
5 Pergola
6 Water basin
7 Ladys living quarters
8 Gallery
9 Garden with small pond
10 Greenhouse
Elevation
On a coastal site on the Dutch North Sea coast, a full-scale mock-
up of the faades of a house, constructed of painted sailcloth over
wood framing, was erected in winter 1912/13 between the dunes
and woods. The only known photograph of the installation was
published 15 years later in an article, accompanied by the note:
Mies was quite right when he remarked on this project that if
one were to remove the detailing of the faade, one would have
a building very much like those he makes today. That is, a building
in which living is not dictated by the arrangement of the house,
but the arrangement of the house follows the process of living.1
The original floor plan no longer exists, but Mies later sket-
ched a sequence of some of the spaces from memory. 2 He placed
the entrance at the corner of the H-shaped plan of the building.
Visitors pass through a vestibule into a representative hall from
which a path leads to the dining room and a long passage to a
second wing with a large exhibition gallery. In this second wing
on the far side, a hall also serves as a vestibule distributing the
visitors in all directions.
The lady of the house, Helene Krller-Mller, had specific
ideas of her own for a monumental country house. To exhibit
their collection of paintings, a windowless hall was required that
she wanted placed near to her own room.3 The organisation of
the programme of spaces was complex as the different functio-
nal areas needed to be independent of one another but still be
incorporated into an overall composition. The different areas in-
cluded a succession of reception rooms for entertaining, the pri-
vate residence of the couple, a service wing for the servants as
well as semi-public areas for the art collection. This programme
of spaces, representing the different living processes, was recor-
ded by Peter Behrens, who was originally commissioned to un-
dertake the project. His design was also tested on site as a full-
7 9 10
scale model but was ultimately turned down. Mies worked at the
time as Behrens assistant and was able to establish a good work
ing relationship with the clients. Mies was then asked to deve-
lop a design of his own for the house, which in turn marked the
end of his collaboration with Behrens.
In Behrens earlier project, visitors were also led via a vesti-
bule into a hall from which a corridor continued onto the far wing
with the windowless gallery space. The living room, in which the
family usually dined, as is typical in Holland,4 is axially aligned
with a pool of water in front of it while the dining room was used
only for special events or entertaining guests. The wing with the
succession of reception rooms is divided into two linear zones,
one for the service functions and one for the served rooms. The
kitchen was situated on the upper storey. Fritz Hoeber wrote of
the ladys rooms: The square of the gentlemans room at one end
corresponds to a large vestibule at the other end from which the
ladys personal living quarters can be reached. Her living room,
replete with a special wardrobe, can only be reached through
this room; there is no door directly from the hallway. And to con-
tinue this analogy with a monastic cell, the ladys living room has
its own private garden, its giardino secreto in an intimate cour-
tyard whose short sides are flanked by freestanding columns, af-
fording an expansive view from the windows of her room while
still providing a sense of enclosure. 5
Mies carried over this arrangement of the garden into his own
project, flanking it with a greenhouse, and likewise attributing it
to the ladys quarters.6 He heightened its sense of intimacy by
making only one room open onto the garden. We know from rec
ords that Helene Krller-Mller had found Behrens architecture
to be lacking in intimacy. 7
One can only speculate as to why Mies design was eventu-
ally rejected. While Mies was developing his design, Hendrik Pe-
trus Berlage was also commissioned to draw up a second design.
The Krller-Mllers consulted their artistic advisor, who is repor-
ted to have said of Berlages project, that is art, and of Mies,
25
Elevation
26 Upper floor plan
that is not. However, Berlages project also never came to fru-
ition. Mies even went to Paris to solicit a critique of his own de-
sign from the art critic Julius Meier-Graefe, who wrote in praise
of the handsome asymmetrical arrangement of the complex,
declaring: Nothing is piecemeal. All the parts hang together
and are developed logically. 8

The 1:1 model of the house was set up on a system of rails so that
it could be moved about. Everything inside the partitions and
the ceilings could move up and down,9 recalled Mies, noting in
retrospect that it could be dangerous to erect a house as a model.

In his use of the term dangerous, Mies was probably referring
to the fact that there is more to building than erecting a life-size
impression of its form. Even when one can experience its spatial
characteristics, it lacks all materiality and the specifics of its cons-
truction, as well as a connection with the place. Rem Koolhaas on
the other hand has written in S,M,L,XL: I suddenly saw him inside
the colossal volume, a cubic tent vastly lighter and more sugges-
tive than the sombre and classical architecture it attempted to em-
body. I guessed almost with envy that this strange enactment
of a future house had drastically changed him: were its whiteness
and weightlessness an overwhelming revelation of everything he
did not yet believe in? An epiphany of anti-matter? Was this can-
vas cathedral an acute flash-forward to another architecture?10
The development of Mies work would nevertheless display an
evolutionary continuity for a long time to come. Leaving aside the
rigorous classical arrangement of the faades, the way in which
the secondary volumes interlock organically with the primary
block-like building volume already hints at his later work. Mies
would later say of this project: Certainly I was influenced by
Schinkel, but the plan is not in any way Schinkels.11
A water basin was to be placed in front of the expansive com-
plex in which the architecture would be reflected, a situation com-
parable to that seen in the Barcelona Pavilion, for here too a sec
ond smaller pool was planned within a more intimate enclosed
courtyard to reflect a sculptural figure.
A smaller model was also constructed of Mies project but in
a modified form. In this model, the intimate courtyard with the
smaller pool and a sculpture on a round plinth is open on the
other side. The central space, which corresponds to the ladys
room in Behrens project, no longer has three large French win-
dows opening onto the garden but is now puzzlingly entirely en-
closed and is marked as a gallery for engravings.12
1 Paul Westheim, Mies van der Rohe Entwicklung eines Architekten, in:
Das Kunstblatt, vol. 2, 1927, p. 56.
2 Sketch of the Ground floor plan from around 1931. Published in: Barry
Bergdoll and Terence Riley (eds.), Mies in Berlin. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Die Berliner Jahre 19071938, Munich 2001, p. 166.
3 Cf. Sergio Polano, Rose-shaped, Like an Open Hand. Helene Krller-
Mllers House, in: Rassegna, Dec. 1993, p. 23.
4 Fritz Hoeber, Peter Behrens, Munich 1913, p. 201.
5 Ibid., pp. 201202.
6 Cf. Mies legend House of flowers for the lady.
7 Cf. note 3.
8 The letter from Julius Meier-Graefe can be found in the MoMA Archives.
Cited in: Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe A
Critical Biography, Chicago 2012, pp. 4142.
9 Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Henry Thomas Cadbury-Brown in:
Architectural Association Journal, July/Aug. 1959, p. 29.
10 Rem Koolhaas, S,M,L,XL, Rotterdam 1995, p. 63.
11 Cf. note 9, p. 28.
12 Cf. note 2.
K r ller-M ller Ho u se , Fa a de M o ck - up 27
Werner House On a site directly adjacent to the Perls House, Mies designed a
Berlin-Zehlendorf, Germany, 191213 second L-shaped building made up of a constellation of differ
ent building volumes. The building is placed at the north end of
a large site, turning its back on its neighbour to the north, while
the southern part of the site is kept free for use as a vegetable
garden. As with the earlier houses for Riehl and Perls, the faade
facing the garden is more open and monumental than the street
elevation and features a central frontal projection emphasising
the symmetry of the garden elevation. From the north, by cont-
rast, one sees only a wall that conceals the service yard and the
windows closest to the street are the kitchen windows. With this
gesture the house turns away from the street and opens onto the
private outdoor areas.
Stylistically, the stuccoed building with a large mansard roof
follows a regional building pattern reminiscent of that used by
Alfred Messel for similar buildings, as and described by Paul
Mebes in his book Um 1800.1 This stylistic direction emphasises
simplicity over the prestige of classicism. The plan of the house
bearssimilarity to that of Peter Behrens Wiegand House, espe-
cially the pergola that extends out into the garden, but its charac-
ter is less monumental: its dimensions are more modest and the
atmosphere more intimate.
The path from the street to the main entrance ascends a couple
of steps to a raised podium. All these elements the path, steps
and podium are paved with brick. From the entrance, the path
through the house does not lead in a straight line to the garden
but towards a radiator concealed by a radiator screen that sha-
res the same detailing as those in the Perls House, with alterna-
ting square-section and round-section bars that have been given
a slight entasis much like classical columns. Elsewhere, the deco-
rative details have been handled sparingly, with just the sugges-
tion of a capital on the columns of the pergola and a heavily ab
stracted eaves cornice detail.
On stepping out into the garden, one enters a further ar-
chitectonically defined space. Here the commingling of architec-
ture and the plots topography is more strongly articulated than in
Mies earlier buildings. In this L-shaped complex, the architecture
and the garden are likewise conceived as a whole. Like the Perls
House next door, the house opens onto a sunken garden area ex-
cept that here it is enclosed by a walkway, which takes the form
of a colonnaded structure. In his earlier design for the Krller-Ml-
ler House, Mies describes a similar construction as a pergola,
however these are less like open structures than roofed-over sec-
tions of the building complex.
The garden at the rear a terrace with rough-hewn stone pa-
ving is accessed, like in the Wiegand House, via three French
doors in the central, axially-arranged room, as well as from the
neighbouring dining room that opens directly onto the pergola.
Again echoing the arrangement of the Wiegand House, the gar-
den is divided into different conceptual areas: a formal, geo
metrically defined area that relates directly to the architecture,
and a landscaped garden area. The path through the architec-
ture is articulated to provide framed views and leads up two sets
of stone steps to a wooded area from which one has a view of
the entire ensemble.

The addition of a later extension over the former service yard altered
the appearance of the building ensemble. Built in the 1920s, the ex-
tension continues the formal language of the building but changes
its shape. The garden has also been changed: the straight rear
retaining wall has been replaced by a wall with a semi-circular re-
cess.2 The pool of water in the lower section is likewise a later ad-
dition, replacing a bed of herbaceous plants. The pergola has also
been lengthened to accommodate a wheelchair access ramp and
a school now uses the building.

Garden
Stairs in the garden 29
Although the reconstruction replicates just the gesture of an out-
stretched arm enclosing the garden, and does not follow Mies
original concept, it still allows us to experience the unity of build
ing and garden in Mies work more powerfully than any other of
his early works, and one can still sense the intimacy of the atmos-
phere. While the topography of the garden is constructed as
a series of plateaus connected by steps, the building has in turn
become overgrown.
Before Mies next building the Warnholtz House was dis-
covered by historians, the Werner House was held to be an isola-
ted exception in his oeuvre of works, so much so that his author-
ship was called into question.3 But it is less the formal and stylistic
language that makes this building notable than the structural con-
cept of the ensemble. Mies design builds on an established build
ing type, and he would later declare the idea of the simple and
self-evident to be an ideal, but what makes this building relevant
is its definition of space through the volume of the building. The
right-angular form creates a protected courtyard situation, a prin-
ciple that Mies also employed for the design of his own house, al
though this was never built. In his later addition to the Perls House
he would likewise create an L-shaped situation, demonstrating that
the pattern of living does not have to follow the arrangement of
the house but vice versa. But Mies had not dispensed with the
simplicity and rigour of his clearly proportioned rectangular floor
plans. The different floor plans of the Perls House and the Werner
House represent two conceptual poles between which he would
experiment in his future work. In retrospect, his entire European
oeuvre can be seen as an attempt to bring contrasting concep-
tions into harmonious balance. Of this period he would later say,
After my time in Holland, an inner battle ensued in which I tried
to free myself from the influence of Schinkelesque classicism.4
The origins of the L-shaped arrangement go back to the Krl-
ler-Mller project. In Behrens earlier design for the building, which
Mies had worked on, the ladys quarters were connected to an in-
timate garden, a concept that Mies also carried over for his own
design for that house and finally put into practice in a similar form
here in the Werner House.
1 Paul Mebes, Um 1800, Munich 1908. In a conversation with Dirk

Lohan, Mies cites Alfred Messels Villa Oppenheim in Berlin as one of
his inspirations. Documented in a manuscript in the Mies Archives of the
MoMA, New York.
2 For further information on the design of the garden, see Christiane
Kruse, Garten, Natur und Landschaftsprospekt Zur sthetischen
Inszenierung des Auenraums in den Landhausanlagen Mies van der Rohes,
Dissertation, Freie Universitt Berlin 1994.
3 The plans of the house are signed only by Ferdinand Goebbels, who was
Mies partner and was also involved in executing the Perls House. Since
then a further plan signed by Mies has been discovered. See also Christiane
Kruse, Haus Werner Ein ungeliebtes Frhwerk Mies van der Rohes, in:
Zeitschrift fr Kunstgeschichte, 1993, pp.554563.
4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Ulrich Conrads in 1964,
produced on a phonograph record, Mies in Berlin, Bauwelt, Berlin 1966.
Pergola
Stairs to entrance
30 Radiator screen
Garden faade Werner Ho u se 31
Warnholtz HOUSE This house on the Heerstrae, which was only attributed to Mies in
Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany, 191415 20011, continues the formal language of the Werner House. Visi-
destroyed tors pass by the shortest possible path through the house along a
central axis. A central salon is flanked to the west by a music room
and dining room, and to the east by a library and study. The clear
proportions of the rooms are a product of their round dimensions:
the salon measures exactly 5 by 7.50 metres, the entrance 3 by 4
metres, the closed veranda to the west 4 by 5 metres and the li
brary 4 by 3 metres.2 A second transverse axis offers views per-
pendicular to the main axis, creating a maximum sense of breadth.
Mies declared admiration for Alfred Messel, and for his design
of the Oppenheim House in particular, can be seen in the detai-
ling of the faade as well as the design of the open veranda. The
house was demolished around 1960 and the garden destroyed.
1 Markus Jager, Das Haus Warnholtz von Mies van der Rohe (1914/15),
in: Zeitschrift fr Kunstgeschichte, 2002, pp. 123136. The design of the
garden has been reconstructed from historical aerial photographs. With
thanks to Markus Jager for his valuable input.
2 These dimensions are given in the building records at the Berlin
Landesarchiv.
Elevation
urbig House The design for this villa exploits the topography of the sloping site
Neubabelsberg, Germany, 191517 on the banks of Griebnitzsee lake in such a way that it presents
two storeys on one side and three on the other. As with the Warn-
holtz House, a succession of stairs leads from the living area via a
terrace down to the garden. A further open staircase next to the
house leads to a small seating area. The terrace is articulated as a
podium and appears to extend through the entire house, reappea-
ring on the street elevation as a large travertine step and giving the
impression that the house rests on a plinth. The travertine paving of
the terrace has since been reconstructed, as have the balustrades,
window shutters and garden fence. The access to the lower storey
has also been changed. The boathouse was demolished in 1961
when the Berlin wall was built, which passed through the garden.1
1 Further information on the history of its use and restoration, see: Winfried
Brenne, Haus Urbig, Neubabelsberg. Baugeschichte und Wiederherstellung,
in: Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.), Mies van der Rohe: Frhe
Bauten. Probleme der Erhaltung, Probleme der Bewertung, Petersberg 2004,
pp. 6270; as well as: Claudia Hain, Villa Urbig 19151917 Zur Geschichte
und Architektur des brgerlichen Wohnhauses fr den Bankdirektor Franz
Urbig Ein frhes Werk von Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Potsdam-
Babelsberg, Berlin 2009, private print. This contains a print of the plan of the
boathouse signed by Mies.
Ground floor plan 33

Street faade
Garden faade
34 Urb i g H o u se Outdoor stairs First floor plan
Tombstone for Laura Perls The tombstone stands in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weien-
Berlin-Weiensee, Germany, 1919 see.1 Mies designed it for Laura Perls, the mother of Mies second
client. The meticulously fitted blocks of stone are made of shell
limestone not any ordinary limestone, but valuable core rock with
an especially dense structure of the type used in the past for sculp-
tures. The surface structure of the stone at the base of the tomb
shows that it has been cut against the grain while the stone above
has been cut with the grain. The precious material is placed as a
block in space, its plain but monumental form expressed simply
through the clarity with which the blocks are precisely assembled.
The proportion of its height to length is exactly 3:4.
1 Berlin Heritage Authority and Berlin Technical University (eds.), 115,628

Berliners The Weiensee Jewish Cemetery Documentation of the
Comprehensive Survey of the Burial Sites, Berlin 2013, p. 54.
Tombstone 35
Kempner House
destroyed
Elevation
The building is placed in the far northeast corner of the plot. The
house consists of a series of different wings adjoining a main vol
ume. Two service wings containing the servants quarters and the
kitchens are placed to the east of a firewall and together enclose
a courtyard. The building records document that Mies skilfully ne-
gotiated the placement of the building closer to the boundary of
the plot than was actually allowed,1 arguing that this was the only
way to preserve the mature trees on the site.
The ground floor plan is a complex configuration that organi-
ses the representative needs of the owners and the functions of
the servants. The plan can be read as a diagram with a dividing
line between the serving and the served spaces. The rooms of
the man of the house were also separate from those of his spouse.
While the gentlemans room with bay and fireplace forms the north
ernmost of the succession of representative spaces, which could
be connected or divided by sliding doors, the lady of the house
resided on the first floor with access to the roof terrace. A second
roof terrace is arranged on top of the L-shaped kitchen wing.2
The approach to the house is not organised around a cen-
tral axis, but rather from the side via a somewhat inconspicuous
entrance. Visitors enter the site in the northwest corner and walk
along a long pre-existing wall towards a service wing before, after
a couple of steps, turning through 90 degrees to enter the house.
Upon entering, the visitor sees a succession of rooms extending
the entire length of the house to the garden. As with Mies later
designs for the Lange and Esters Houses in Krefeld, the build
ing transitions into the garden via a paved terrace in the terrain.
The floor plan shown before does not reflect what was actu-
ally built but an earlier design that was altered several times dur
ing construction.3 In those plans the door to the service wing is
shown directly on axis with the path that visitors take as they ap-
proach the house. They would then have walked directly towards
this ancillary door, a situation that Mies obviously saw as an er-
ror as he later replaced this door with a window into the service
wing and repositioned the service door next to the main entrance.
The linear path through the house leads from the entrance to
the veranda, which is open on one side and has a window on the
other. The placement of the glazing between two outdoor areas
is a somewhat unusual solution but one that Mies also uses in the
houses for the Riehl, Urbig, Esters and Lange families. This provi-
des a framed view of the landscape while still being able to sit out-
doors protected from the elements. The result is a sheltered space,
an intermediary zone that is at once part of the house as well as
part of the garden. Although stylistically different, the Kempner
House and the later Esters House employ the same structural se-
quence of spaces from the dining room via a half-open covered
veranda that effects a 90 degrees turn before descending via a
flight of steps into the garden.
The house has a pronounced Dutch character. The building is
made of brick laid in Dutch bond with a stepped gable over the
service wing. Even the raised pointing of the brickwork is Dutch
in origin. Mies recounts that he was heavily influenced by the
work of the Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage. This house,
with its complex asymmetric, staggered arrangement of different
building volumes with bays and tall chimneys, is in spirit closer to
Berlage than the Berlin tradition in the vein of Schinkel. The col
oured glazing in the vertical windows of the staircase and the wo-
ven patterning of the floor tiles are likewise similar in character to
Berlages architecture.

The house was planted with creepers that spread across the en-
tire courtyard faade within a few years. During the war it suffered
heavy damage and the remains of the building were dismantled
in the early 1950s. Today the site houses the Department of Ma-
thematics of the Technical University of Berlin.
First floor plan 37

38 Elevation
In the period between designing the Kempner House and the Ur-
big House that preceded it, Mies life and work was affected by his-
torical events that not only brought about major political turbulen-
ces but also redirected the development of architecture as a whole.
Mies was conscripted to serve in the First World War, and on his
return he, like many of his contemporaries, drew up visionary de-
signs that heralded a transformation in architecture and in society.
As with almost all of Mies early buildings, the Kempner House
was not published in the press at the time. The appearance of the
house remained unknown until the mid-1980s when the building
records of the house were discovered. A design drawing was pu-
blished in Philip Johnsons monograph of Mies work, but the ac-
tual building differed in its form. In his foreword Johnson explains
that only those buildings that were not built according to Mies
guidelines were not published. The five avant-garde projects in
the book the two glass skyscrapers, an office building, a con-
crete country house and a brick country house have therefore
overshadowed the Kempner House to the present day, although
it is from the same period.
Attempts to explain this discrepancy between the unbuilt
modernworks and the conventional built projects as bread-
and-butter work, or the assumption that Mies succumbed to the
conservative tastes of his clients are not borne out by Mies own
luxurious lifestyle and his famously uncompromising standpoint in
his dealings with clients.4 Years later, Mies also showed the house
to the Tugendhat family before obtaining the commission.
Compared with the Feldmann House built at the same time,
the ground floor plan of the Kempner House is positively labyrin-
thine. In retrospect, one can see that Mies work at this time in the
early 1920s fluctuated between two divergent concepts of space.
While the classical solution of the Feldmann House employs a
central axis of symmetry and is extremely clearly organised, this
house reflects the complex spatial relationships that prevail in sta-
tely house with live-in servants. Mies would later call this complex
way of organising space an organic principle of order,5 but for a
long time he was undecided and kept switching between a clas-
sical and an organic arrangement of rooms.
1 See the building records for Sophienstrae 57 in the Berlin State Archives:
B Rep. 207 no. 1608.
2 Immediately on entering the house, one finds a coatroom and toilet to
the left while the private rooms of the houses owner the Privy Councillor
Maximilian Kempner are on the right. The path leads straight ahead from
the entrance through a central hall and stairway to the dining room and
veranda beyond. Adjoining the dining room is the living room, which opens
on to the terrace, as well as a serving area that can be reached directly
from the kitchen. A second service wing with its own living quarters and
kitchen for the servants is reached via a separate entrance. A stair leads up
to the sleeping quarters. The bedrooms of the owner and his wife Franziska
Kempner and their son as well as the ladys living quarters are arranged
on the first floor.
3 The floor plan is published in: Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies
van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 85. The most
comprehensive study of this house can be found in: Andreas Marx and Paul
Weber, Konventioneller Kontext der Moderne Mies van der Rohes Haus
Kempner 192123 Ausgangspunkt einer Neubewertung des Hochhauses
Friedrichstrae, in: Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart Jahrbuch des
Landesarchivs Berlin, Berlin 2003, pp. 65107. The floor plans published
here also do not correspond to what was actually built.
4 Cf. Andreas Marx and Paul Weber, Konventionelle Kontinuitt Mies
van der Rohes Baumanahmen an Haus Urban 192426. Anlass zu einer
Neuinterpretation seines konventionellen Werkes der 1920er Jahre, in:
Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.), Mies van der Rohe: Frhe
Bauten Probleme der Erhaltung, Probleme der Bewertung, Petersberg
2004, pp. 163178.
5 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Inaugural address, in: Fritz Neumeyer, The
Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge, Mass.
1991, p. 317.
kempner house 39
Eichstaedt House A series of different spaces adjoin the almost square-plan house
Berlin-Nikolassee, Germany, 192123 and serve as a transition between indoors and outdoors, or make
it possible to experience the world outdoors from within: a round
bay separated from the interior by a step, a banked terrace with
adjacent veranda and a projecting entrance vestibule. In the pre-
liminary design, this projection was not present but its later addi-
tion made it possible to make the entrance area more spacious.
This entrance leads via a hallway to the stairs, the living room and
the dining room, separated off by a curtain, while the pathway
through the building always leads towards the light. Two glazed
doors and a strip of windows illuminate the dining room. The kit-
chen and pantry lie in the northwest part of the house. Although
the site does not directly adjoin the lake, 150 metres away, it opens
onto woodland to the south. The house has experienced succes-
sive alterations: an extension was added to the west, the veranda
closed off and the front porch extended.1
1 The planning application and later alterations are documented in the

building records for Dreilindenstrae 30 held at Bau- und Wohnungs
aufsichtsamt Zehlendorf (Building Control and Housing Department).
First floor plan

40 Ground floor plan View from the garden
Feldmann House This house is very clearly organised. The main volume of the build
Berlin-Grunewald, Germany, 192123 ing has a symmetrical arrangement with the entrance in the cen-
destroyed tral axis. A linear path runs through the house to the garden and is
crossed by a transverse axis forming a second visual axis. The liv
ing room to the west and the dining room to the east are exactly
6 by 9 metres and have straightforward proportions. The hallway
between them measures 3 by 6 metres and the main part of the
building 11.14 by 22.26 metres. The central staircase with curved
steps is placed like an object in the space of the entrance hall. An-
cillary spaces such as the cloakroom, servants staircase and ent-
rance to the service wing and kitchen are placed to the right, with
the study to the left of the entrance hall. The building was badly
damaged during the war and rebuilt with alterations. However, the
core remained intact for over 80 years before it was demolished.1
1 The building records are available from the Bau- und Wohnungs
aufsichtsamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf (Building Control and Housing
Department).
Elevation
First floor plan
Ryder House The plan of the house is very similar to that of the Riehl House. In
Wiesbaden, Germany, 192327 contrast to the earlier house, however, the staircase is not placed
out of sight. Instead visitors walk directly towards it on entering
the house. On the upper floor, diagonal sight lines afford a view of
the large windows which turn the corner of the building. Schne
Aussicht (pleasant vista) is not only the name of the street one
of the most prestigious in Wiesbaden but also the theme of
the architecture. A glazed conservatory on one side of the house
with a large terrace on its flat roof made the most of its dramatic
situation overlooking the city. The house has since been changed
beyond recognition. The faades have been remodelled and a
hipped roof was added in the 1980s. Today, only isolated elements
of the original architecture still exist.1
1 This project was undertaken jointly with Gerhard Severain. The history
of the house is described in: Dietrich Neumann, Das Haus Ryder in
Wiesbaden (1923) und die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe und Gerhard Severain, in: Architectura, vol. 36, 2006, pp. 199222.
Elevation
First floor plan
42 Ground floor plan Balcony
Gymnasium for Frau Buttes Private School The gymnasium is an addition to an existing school building. The
Potsdam, Germany, 192425 building is entered via a projecting porch that houses a couple
of steps leading down into the gymnasium.1 The floor plan has
a clear structure. The room is illuminated by a series of tall win-
dows. Cornices lend the exterior an austere and classical impres-
sion. Although reminiscent of historical architecture, the construc-
tion is entirely modern. As with the industrial buildings by Peter
Behrens, a monumental faade design encloses an open interior
covered by a delicate steel roof construction.
The building has undergone significant alterations. Two storeys
were added and a new level introduced within the interior. The cor-
nices of the faade were removed and replaced with a scraped ren-
der. Only the windows have been reconstructed as they once were.
1 The ground floor plan of the building as originally built (dated 28 Aug.
1925) is available from the Conservation Department in Potsdam building
record SvPAD, Acta specialia Helene-Lange-Strae 14.
Elevation
Floor plan
Detail of the faade 43
Mosler House
First floor plan

The prominent location overlooking a lake determines both the
placement of the house on the site as well as the direction of move-
ment through the building. Visitors are led by the shortest path
from the entrance hall through the house to the covered terrace
overlooking the Griebnitzsee lake. The building sits on a ledge
above a slope that descends steeply to the lake affording a view
over the wooded landscape as if from a tower. This dramatic effect
is heightened by raising the level of the ground floor: although the
house does not rest on a plinth, the monumental open stair that
descends into the garden helps to create this impression.
The service spaces and served spaces are clearly separated
from one another and divide the ground floor into two parallel zo-
nes. The linear arrangement of entrance hall, staircases, wardrobe,
toilets, pantry and dumb waiter and lift creates a ribbon of service
spaces. The representative rooms the music room, the centrally
placed library and the study are also arranged as a linear succes-
sion of spaces, a grand enfilade whose axis extends out into the
garden. The adjoining dining room is given the same proportions
as its counterparts in the earlier Riehl and Perls Houses. Measur
ing exactly 6 by 9 metres, it again corresponds to a ratio of 2:3,
but here opens directly onto the garden outside.1 From the cen-
tre of the room, one has views of the surroundings in all directions
creating an impression of spaciousness.
While the building does not directly adjoin the lake, the view
from the terrace looks over the water. The view is carefully framed
so that the water is seen directly behind the travertine ledge of
the terrace, with the garden obscured from view. The projecting
travertine block of the terrace therefore not only acts as a podium
on which the architecture rests but also creates the impression of
residing above the lake.
Although this country house2 built for the banker Georg Mos-
ler in the villa colony in Neubabelsberg near Potsdam has not been
viewed as a high point in Mies oeuvre of works, it is still notable,
if not for its stylistic aspects, then for the quality of its materials
and execution. The heavy entrance door, which visitors reach via
a set of travertine steps, is faced with a sheet of solid oiled oak.
The floor of the entrance hall is paved with Carrara marble, and
the grander of the two inner staircases is made of solid walnut.
The doors are veneered with Caucasian walnut, along with some
of the wall panelling. The window shutters are operated via a com-
plex mechanism in which the shutters travel in grooves embedded
in the wall. For the door frames, similarly complex custom fittings
were developed. Rather than interconnecting in the typical fashion
with a single shaft, the two door handles on either side of the door
are staggered, connecting with the door at two different points.
The centrally placed dressing room on the upper floor is con-
ceived as a refined piece of furniture. The fitted cupboards are
clad with Mahogany Pommel veneer and form the walls, and
this haptic quality of the materials contributes to its specific char
acter. While the room itself is like a walk-in wardrobe, seen from
outside the high quality of its wood facing makes it appear like
a solid block of exquisite material placed in the houses interior.
Typologically, the house represents a continuation of the Urbig
and Feldmann Houses, this time with facing brickwork. While al-
most all of Mies buildings until then were masonry constructions,
here brick is also used as the facing material, as it was previously
for the Kempner House. Compared with the Kempner House,
however, this building is both clearer and more rigorous in its ar-
rangement. Special bricks were used in combination with a spe
cific brick bond. Mies imported hand-moulded bricks from Holland
which were of a smaller, non-standard size and were laid in Dutch
bond,3 the same pattern as used in the Kempner House. The prin-
ciple of using raised pointing that protrudes beyond the face of
the brickwork also came from Holland. The outer masonry leaf was
made with facing bricks and, like the coffered ceiling in the study,
served a decorative and therefore non-loadbearing function. The
Street faade
View from the garden
View over the lake 45
Detail of the stairs
46 Dressing room
Ceiling detail
Entrance hall Mosler house 47
precise detailing of these cladding layers can be seen in the in- with which Mies resolved the problem that the distance between
dented brickwork corner detail of the shafts of the loggia columns the door handle and the frame is typically different on either side
and the cross-jointed mirrored arrangement of the Caucasian wal- of the door. Around the same time, Ludwig Wittgenstein develo-
nut veneer in the square ceiling coffers. ped his famous bent door handle to resolve precisely this design
problem. Mies invested great effort in realising a complex techni-
Later alterations to the building cal solution that remained entirely hidden from view.
Georg Mosler, a Jewish banker, emigrated with his family at the
end of the 1930s after the Nazis expropriated his house and pos- 1 The dimensions of exactly 6 by 9 metres are given in the planning
application documents submitted on 23 July 1924. See the planning
sessions. The German Red Cross then used the house as an ad-
documents held at the Conservation Department of the Potsdam Building
ministrative building. After the war, the building lay in the restric- Authority.
ted zone of the border strip between the two German states, and 2 This is the term used to describe the house in the working drawings.
was used by the GDR as a childrens clinic and home for disabled 3 In this masonry bond, the header and stretcher alternate. It is also
children. The walls, wooden panelling and open fireplace were know as Gothic or Polish bond, and in Holland it is called Flemish bond.
Mies, however, termed this Dutch bond, writing: The plinth of the fence
lost, the bathrooms were converted and PVC flooring was applied
is executed using Dutch facing bricks laid in Dutch bond pattern to
over the parquet. In 2000, a building developer used the house correspond with the house. (see the planning documents).
as its headquarters for the duration of just a few months and re- 4 The alterations are documented in detail in: Johannes Cramer and
moved many of the remaining original finishes. Tiling, linoleum Dorothe Sack (eds.), Mies van der Rohe: Frhe Bauten Probleme der
and parquet flooring was removed as well as the historical lift,4 Erhaltung, Probleme der Bewertung, Petersberg 2004, pp. 7986.
5 Werner Blaser, Mies van der Rohe, Zurich 1991, p. 18.
and doors, door frames and skirting boards were shortened to ac-
6 Mies van der Rohe, lecture manuscript from 19 June 1924, in: Fritz
commodate new carpeting. Thereafter the building remained un- Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art,
used for several years. The house has since been renovated com- Cambridge, Mass., 1991, p. 250.
prehensively and a new entrance added to the side of the house. 7 Cf. Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe A Critical Biography, Chicago,
London 1985, p. 121.
The building now serves once again as a home.
8 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Building Art and the Will of the Epoch!
(1924), in: Fritz Neumeyer: The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the
The building as seen from the present Building Art, Cambridge, Mass., 1991, p. 246.
There are no corridors5 remarked Werner Blaser in a descrip-
tion of the key characteristics of Mies unrealised design for a Brick
Country House from 1924. Mies had published two drawings of this
project to demonstrate an architectonic principle: The wall loses
its enclosing character and serves only to articulate the house or-
ganism.6 At the time Mies wrote this, he was working on the de-
sign of the Mosler House. Although the concept here is different,
the layout of the rooms is such that there are indeed no corridors.
A theme of the unbuilt project for a Brick Country House is the
connection between the interior and exterior. Although the Mos-
ler House is not as dynamic in its layout and the walls have an en-
closing character, the quality of the living areas is strongly infor-
med by the connection between the interior and exterior. The
rooms are linked with the exterior via four large, differently orien-
ted and partially covered terraces that offer different kinds of out-
door experiences depending on the time of day or the prevailing
weather conditions.
The fact that Mies later placed greater emphasis on his vision
ary but unbuilt designs for the Brick and Concrete Country Hou-
ses in the publication of his oeuvre than on his built work from
the same period contributed to the Mosler House being regarded
as anachronistic.7 In 1924, as Mies began with the plans, he re-
marked that, My receptiveness to the beauty of handwork does
not prevent me from recognizing that handicrafts as a form of eco-
nomic production are lost. [] We cannot save them any more.8
Although his prognosis is expressed dispassionately and without
the slightest hint of nostalgia, the Mosler House appears in retro-
spect to champion the very opposite. Today we know that Mies
prognosed decline in the quality of craftsmanship was correct, and
in this respect the house represents a landmark in Mies work for
the quality of its execution.
Despite the fact that the house demonstrates Mies declared
principle of maximising the spatial impression of the plan, from
outside it looks plain and even austere, causing the building com-
mission to take it for a military barracks. However, its sizeable di-
mensions and the exceptionally high quality of its fittings can also
evoke associations with a castle or manor. Mies invested a large
part of the financial resources in the materials and detailing.
The seemingly insignificant detail of the door fittings with
handles at two different positions necessitated a complex inter-
nal locking mechanism and was an elaborate custom-made fitting
48 M o sler h o u se
Urban House, Conversion In this conversion of an existing house, Mies converted the conser-
Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany, 192426 vatory into a room for the lady of the house. In addition to insert
ing new sliding doors, he created a glazed bay window, which has
since been destroyed. A residence for the chauffeur was also built
on top of the garage. These conversions were made in the spirit of
the original building rather than contrasting with it. While his de-
sign for the new windows emulated the other windows down to the
last detail, the detailing of the new sliding doors lends them a char
acter of their own. In the most recent renovation in 2010, further
original details were lost. The timber windows of the chauffeurs
residence were replaced with plastic windows.1
1 For further information on the history of the building see: Andreas Marx
and Paul Weber, Konventionelle Kontinuitt Mies van der Rohes Bauma
nahmen an Haus Urban 192426. Anlass zu einer Neueinschtzung seines
konventionellen Werkes, in: Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.),
Mies van der Rohe: Frhe Bauten. Probleme der Erhaltung, Probleme der
Bewertung, Petersberg 2004, pp. 163178.
Ground floor plan

Detail of door 49
Housing on the Afrikanische Strasse Few people passing by the house would give it a second look
Berlin-Wedding, Germany, 192527 today, 1 wrote an architecture critic of one of Mies early works.
The same applies to the housing on the Afrikanische Strae,
which is now partially obscured by a row of trees. Despite the
unassuming, almost anonymous appearance of Mies faade, the
building differed fundamentally from all other housing settle
ments of the time. Most social housing in the 1920s was con-
ceived as a unified architectural and urban constellation; in this
case, however, the architecture was conceived together with the
landscape architecture.
The urban arrangement of the housing project corresponds
neither to Berlins typical perimeter block arrangement nor to the
ribbon development model that was held to be progressive dur
ing the years of the Weimar Republic. The three U-shaped build
ings clasp greened courtyards at the rear and are also set back
markedly from the street, creating enough space for a front gar-
den. Vegetation is also used to provide spatial definition through
the planting of poplar trees along the street in a rhythmic arrange-
ment that relates to the architecture: a pair of trees flanked each
of the entrances to the houses. As Fritz Neumeyer has remarked,
nature is used here as an architectonic element.2
At the ends of the rows lower building volumes have been ar-
ranged that turn the corner and create gateway situations into
the side streets. Two identical faades stand opposite one ano-
ther, defining a space between them. The long row-buildings and
the attached end buildings are joined together by rounded bal-
conies. Like hinges these balconies connect the two different vol
umes while respecting their independence. The end buildings si-
milarly mediate between two different building patterns, forming
a transition to the neighbouring small housing estate of freestand
ing houses that border a nearby park. The floor plans of the end
buildings are dimensioned much like his earlier Perls House. The
ratio of length and breadth corresponds to the Golden Section.
Even the materiality of the ochre-coloured render resembles that
of his earlier building. Although this was the first more extensive
housing complex planned by Mies, the end buildings are in many
ways like freestanding buildings. This is the impression one has
from certain perspectives.
The separate building volumes are put together like modules.
At one end of the complex, a constellation of three of these mod
ules is used to form a corner situation. The way they are joined
without meeting at the corner results in an indented negative
corner, albeit here at an urban scale, which would later become
a characteristic element of many of Mies details.
The floor plans are conventional in their arrangement, with one
notable exception when compared to other designs of the time:
the kitchen is the largest room in the apartment. This takes the
form of a kitchen and living room with a loggia that opens onto
the outdoor areas. This concept differs from many other comple-
xes of the time, including Bruno Tauts floor plans in which the kit-
chen is subordinate to another space. In the Afrikanische Strae
the kitchen is the centre of the apartment. By opening this space
to the outdoors, each apartment benefits from the spaciousness
that characterises the overall urban arrangement.
Mies design respects the pressing need to building econ
omically at the time. The buildings possess a plinth and an eaves-
level cornice faced with brick that run the perimeter of the build
ing. For this Mies used a cross bond that has a rustic character
typical for Berlin, but that he only ever used for the base zone
of plastered buildings. 3 Otherwise the design of the faades is a
product of the arrangement and proportioning of the openings,
and this followed a particular system. The single windows illumin
ate the bathrooms, the pairs of windows the bedrooms, and the
rows of three windows the living rooms. The thin vertical strips
of windows light the stairs, and the thin horizontal strips the roof
space. The arrangement of the windows on the faade is like a
Site plan
50 End buildings
Terraced housing
End building 51
Ground floor plan
52 Elevation of an end building
Faade of the terraced housing Housing on the Afrikanische Strasse 53
French windows in the living and dining area
54 Balcony
diagram that reflects the internal arrangement of the house and produced on a phonograph record, Mies in Berlin, Bauwellt, Berlin 1966.
refrains entirely from individual variation or expressive gestures. 7 Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe A Critical
Biography New and Revised Edition, Chicago, London 2012, p. 83.
The precision of the proportioning was described by Sergius
8 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Moiss Puente (ed.), Conversations with
Ruegenberg, a member of Mies staff: From the very beginning Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2006, p. 20 (in: Interbuild, June 1959).
as I started making drawings for him for a block of housing on the
Afrikanische Strae, he was interested in every detail. This house
was to be built with very conventional materials []. We had brick,
we had timber windows and ceiling joists, which are as old as can
be. The only truly new aspect was the flat roof. And that inter
ested him so much that he sat down next to me and worked with
me sketching out details of the timbers. It was the same with the
proportions of the windows in the wall surfaces. That was really
all we had to play with: making the fronts of these large hous-
ing blocks as beautiful as possible by proportioning the windows
and wall surfaces. I laid sheet after sheet of tracing paper over
one another and then we shifted the lines micrometre for micro-
metre, made them wider apart, then smaller and compared them
with one another.4

After the war, the buildings were given a rough render coat, which
was typical for the time. This was only replaced in 1998 on the
street-facing faades by an ochre-coloured finer render. Based on
old material found in the building, the reddish colour of one of the
staircases was restored. Of the original windows and doors that
still exist, many are in a perfect condition. Unfortunately, these are
gradually being replaced by modern reconstructions.

Twenty years after the complex was completed, Philip Johnson
wrote: In 1925 he built a group of low-cost apartments for the
city of Berlin, in which, despite the exigencies of economy, plan
and fenestration, he achieved an effect of simple, unforced dig-
nity.5 For Mies, Johnsons choice of words low-cost and simple
were inappropriate as descriptions for his own work: Pleasedo
not confuse the simple with the simple-minded. There is a differ
ence. I love simplicity, but probably for reasons of clarity, not cheap
ness or anything like that. That does not enter our heads when
we are working.6
While Franz Schulze wrote in the mid-1980s that the complex
typified the leanly functional architecture of the Existenzmini-
mum,7 Reyner Banham, Julius Posener and Fritz Neumeyer have
argued that the qualities of this project set it apart from other
housing schemes of the time.
In retrospect, we can see that this project marks a turning point
in Mies oeuvre. He himself said that 1926 was a crucial year for
him: I would say that 1926 was the most significant year. [] It
was a year of great realization of awareness.8 But this shift from
conventional architecture to radically modern architecture did
not take place as abruptly as it is often portrayed. The faades of
this housing scheme, with their precisely incised timber windows,
are as symmetrically arranged as in the case of his equally solidly
built villas in which house and garden are likewise fashioned into
a whole. As with his houses, here too elements were mounted on
the faades for climbing plants to grow up.
1 Peter Blake describing the Perls House in: The Master Builders: Le
Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, New York 1960, p. 176.
2 Fritz Neumeyer, Schinkel im Zeilenbau Mies van der Rohes Siedlung
an der Afrikanischen Strae in Berlin-Wedding, in: Andreas Beyer, Vittorio
Lampugnani and Gunter Schweikhart (eds.), Hlle und Flle Festschrift fr
Tilmann Buddensieg, Alfter 1993, p. 420.
3 Mies used this cross bond a second time for the Verseidag Factory in
Krefeld.
4 Sergius Ruegenberg in conversation with Gnther Khne on 28 Feb. 1986,
in: Bauwelt, vol. 11, 1986, pp. 348349.
5 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, New York 1947, p. 35.
End buildings Housing on the Afrikanische Strasse 55

Wolf House In this house situated high above the city with a panoramic view,
Guben, Poland, 192527 the large living rooms the music room, drawing room and din
destroyed ing room are linked with one another at their corners. The dia-
gonal motion begins as soon as one enters the house from the
east, as the entrance door is positioned in the corner of the ves-
tibule. Like the Kempner House, the entrance is placed to one
side, however, here one moves not through a linear progression
of rooms but follows a dynamic path through the house, changing
direction constantly.
The house is positioned some way away from the street and
is reached via a long approach road to the north of the house.
To the south, the building transitions into a terrace offering a
broad view over the city. As with the Kempner House, the faa-
des are made of brick laid in Dutch bond, although here the win-
dow lintels are not articulated in the brickwork. Bricks are also
used to pave the steps outside and the terrace, as well as for the
walls that extend into the landscape. The accessible roof terrace
is likewise paved with brick, and the materiality of the buildings
lends the building a sculptural orthogonality. The house was de-
stroyed during the war and the ruins dismantled. All that remains
today is a garden wall. 1
1 Leo Schmidt (ed.), The Wolf House Project. Traces, Spuren, Slady,
Cottbus 2001.
Second floor plan

First floor plan
56 Ground floor plan Elevation
Monument to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg For the tomb of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and other soci-
Berlin-Lichtenberg, Germany, 1926 alists murdered in 1919, Mies created a monument in Friedrichs-
destroyed felde Cemetery in Berlin. The monument is both an object as well
as a space. The monument itself stood in the centre of a low-walled
enclosure. Mies later recounted how he came about the commis-
sion almost by chance after Eduard Fuchs, the owner of Mies sec
ond house, showed him a proposal: It was an elaborate stone
monument with Doric columns and medallions of Luxemburg and
Liebknecht. When I saw it, I started to laugh and told him it would
be a fine monument for a banker. [] I told him I hadnt the sligh-
test idea of what I would do in its place, but as most of these peo-
ple were shot in front of a wall, a brick wall is what I would build.1
The monument was clad in brick laid in an irregular masonry
bond unique in Mies oeuvre with an upright course of bricks
around the base of each cuboid block. To support these cantile-
vering blocks, a bearing was needed that is concealed behind the
brickwork. The monument was demolished in 1935. For a long
while, nothing was known about the reverse side of the monu-
ment. A photograph published in 2006 reveals that it followed
the same principle as the front face.2
1 Mies in a letter to Donald Drew Egbert, in: idem., Social Radicalism and
the Arts Western Europe, New York 1970, pp. 661662.
2 Mies Haus Magazin. Periodikum zur Kultur der Moderne 2, 2006, p. 40.
Elevation
Top view 57
Weissenhofsiedlung Apartment Block Mies was commissioned with the design of a demonstration
Stuttgart, Germany, 192627 housing colony in his position as vice-chairman of the Deutscher
Werkbund. The houses designed by different architects including
their fully-furnished interiors were part of an exhibition open to
the public. In addition to developing the urban concept for the
colony, Mies also designed the largest of the buildings including
two apartments and their furnishings. He was even able to decide
which architects were to design the houses and invited leading
representatives of the modern movement1 who would transport
the model character of the colony.
It was something like a mediaeval town, 2 remarked Mies
and presented a massing model that in its original version re-
sembled less a master plan than a structural principle which,
like the monument for Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg,
was defined by a free arrangement of projecting and receding
cubist forms. Mies designed a sculptural constellation of build-
ing volumes that followed the contours of the site, resulting in
a terraced complex that rode the arc of the hillside, the back-
bone of which was his own housing block. This was a long row
of buildings with a nearly north-south orientation. The build-
ing was placed on a plinth that was articulated like a step in
the topography and served as a terrace for the apartments. The
roof was also used as a terrace. Peter Behrens, who also con-
tributed to the project, examined the same theme in his ter-
raced rental house.
Even without imposing rules on the participants, it proved pos-
sible to achieve a degree of uniformity. Mies explains: I have re-
frained from laying down a rigid program in order to leave each
individual as free as possible to carry out his ideas. In drawing up
the general plan I felt it important to avoid regulations that might
interfere with free expression.3 Nevertheless he did ask each of
the architects to embrace one principle: Paint it white.4
As with his earlier freestanding buildings, Mies gave his apart-
ment building a public frontage to the street and a private
faade facing the garden. While the entrance side presents a
closed and austere face, the rearward side opens onto the land-
scape. Positioned on top of a hill, the central apartment building
of the Weienhofsiedlung offers a panoramic view over the land-
scape as if from a high-rise tower. The building responds to the
context that Mies himself had developed and at the same time
presents itself to the road like the Afrikanische Strae housing
scheme in Berlin before it as an ideal stereometric building
volume. Here too the windows are placed almost flush with the
outer face of the building so that the wall, lacking the modula-
tion provided by window jambs, appears to span the frontage
like a membrane rather than as a massive wall. This emphasises
the volumetric quality of the architecture, which together with
the surrounding buildings and the topography is perceived as
a coherent entity.
This impression of the stylistic consistency of the colony caused
Philip Johnson to later coin the word International Style. Its pri-
mary characteristic, he notes, is the regularity of the skeleton
structure as an ordering force in place of axial symmetry.5 In the
case of Mies apartment building, this does not apply. While it
does have a skeleton frame structure, the spacing of the axes is
irregular: the structural system has a rhythmic arrangement and
the faade is arranged symmetrically. The rows of windows recall
the industrial character of ribbon windows, but closer inspection
reveals that these are subdivided rhythmically at intervals, albeit
discreetly. The classical articulation of the corners of the build
ing is only apparent in the setback top floor on the roof. The load
bearing structure remains concealed.
The building is a steel construction with masonry wall in-
fill. The skeleton frame makes it possible to arrange the floor
plans more flexibly, which are designed by different architects.
In his own apartment design, Mies demonstrates a system of
Ground floor plan

58 Upper floor plan
Site plan
East faade 59
changeable lightweight partitions that are clad in high-quality
Macassar panelling and stand as a freestanding core in the room.
Mies describes his design concept as follows:
As you know, I intend to try out the most varied plans in this
apartment house. For the time being, I am building only the out-
side and common walls, and inside each apartment only the two
piers that support the ceiling. All the rest is to be as free as it pos-
sibly can be. If I could contrive to get some cheap plywood par-
titions made, I would treat only the kitchen and the bathroom as
fixed spaces, and make the rest of the apartment variable, so that
the spaces could be divided according to the needs of the indivi-
dual tenant. This would have the advantage that it would make it
possible to rearrange the apartment whenever family circumstan-
ces changed, without spending a lot of money on a conversion.
Any carpenter, or any practically minded layman, would be able
to shift the walls.6
The principle of a free plan that he describes is not new but
at that time was not used widely in housing. Other architects also
propagated this principle, such as Le Corbusier, who built two of
the houses in the colony. A few years earlier, in his first published
text, Mies had called for a constructional separation of structure
and spatial divisions. The only fixed points in the ground plan
are the stairs and the elevator shafts, he wrote. All other sub-
divisions of the ground plan are to be adapted to the respective
needs.7 Given the development of his later work, this first text
appears in retrospect to be something of a manifesto. Only after
working for 20 years in his own right did he finally achieve this
constructional separation of structure and partition in his design
for the apartment building in the Weienhofsiedlung.

During the war, the building was converted into a childrens hos-
pital. The original floor plans and room-height doors were lost in
the process. From 198486 the building was comprehensively re-
novated, but here too changes were made to the building. The
faades were clad with polystyrene foam insulation to conform to
thermal insulation regulations, which increased the depth of the
window jambs from 13 to 17.5cm. The original wooden twin-pane
windows were replaced with insulated double-glazed windows and
the original linoleum floor with PVC flooring. One of the demons-
tration apartments was reconstructed, although without resur
recting the system of demountable partition walls.8

The Weienhofsiedlung exhibition attracted several hundred
thousand visitors and was a success for the Deutscher Werkbund
not just as a demonstration of the newest developments in ar-
chitecture, but also as a manifestation of a new movement. But
because by definition Neues Bauen New Architecture broke
with the conventional ways of building, the colony was also per-
ceived as a provocation. This can still be seen today in those cases
where politicians ordered that flat roofs be converted into pitched
roofs. As a large-scale media event, the architecture of the Wei-
enhofsiedlung was clearly influential.
In the context of Mies later work, the realisation of a free plan
was important. In retrospect, however, the architectonic potential
of separating the loadbearing from the non-loadbearing walls was
only hinted at. The loadbearing steel structure lies in the plane of
the faade. The steel profiles of the structural frame are incorpo-
rated into the structure of the wall and lie buried beneath a layer
of plaster, which was later to be the source of damages; but this
construction did make large glazed surfaces possible as well as a
modern expression that Mies had not articulated with such clarity
in his earlier built works. The widespread media attention that this
architecture received was a new phenomenon for Mies and had a
substantial effect on his career.
East faade
Staircase window
60 Stair balustrade
Without maintenance and renovation, the building would today
be a ruin. It was, however, built quite consciously as a prototype,
and it would be wrong to declare the building a typical example
of functionalist architecture for the most basic needs of living. It
differs from most of the radically modern buildings of the time, in
which being avant-garde conditioned breaking with the tradition
of building. The architectural quality of Mies apartment building
is the product of his twenty years of experience of erecting good
buildings in almost any situation good in terms of their use of
materials, solid construction and the perfection of details.
1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Deutscher Werkbund (ed.), Bau und
Wohnung, Stuttgart 1927.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Henry Thomas Cadbury-
Brown in: Architectural Association Journal, July/Aug. 1959, p. 31.
3 Cf. note 1.
4 Cf. note 2.
6 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in a letter to Erna Meyer from 6 Jan. 1927, in:
Karin Kirsch, The Weienhofsiedlung, New York 1989, pp. 4748.
7 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Frhlicht, no. 4, 1922, p. 124. English trans-
lation in: Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the
Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 240.
8 Cf. Hermann Ngele, Die Restaurierung der Weienhofsiedlung 198187,
Stuttgart 1992.
Floor plan of an apartment

West faade W ei ssenho fs ie dl u ng Apartmen t B l o c k 61
Glass Room Even though the Glass Room was built as an installation in an ex-
Die Wohnung Werkbund Exhibition, Stuttgart, Germany, 1927 hibition context, it can be regarded as a manifesto for a r esidential
destroyed space.1 Mies employed furnishings to exemplify the different
residential zones of a house, while allowing these to transition
into one another in a single flowing spatial continuum. From a
vestibule, one entered a living area, denoted by armchairs and
a couch table, followed by a dining room with dining table and
workroom with desk.
The dynamic constellation of spaces is best understood by
walking through the rooms. As soon one enters a new zone, ones
view is drawn to the sides where further spaces can be seen be-
hind the glass wall. Views also open onto two outdoor spaces,
an elongated planted space and a courtyard-like space contain
ing a sculpture by Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Visitors are led along an
S-shaped path around the room-height panes of glass.
The flooring material of black, white and red areas of lino-
leum reflects the different zones. The floor covering continued
with a uniform composition into the neighbouring square hall
in which the German Linoleum Works presented their products.
The interior of both now demolished halls at Gewerbehalleplatz
was designed by Mies and Lilly Reich and for the hall with the
linoleum exhibition with the artist Willi Baumeister.
The Glass Room came about as a result of Mies own initiative:
three months before the exhibition was to begin, Mies put the
idea to the Association of German Glass Producers who agreed
to sponsor the exhibition. The installation was dismantled after
the end of the Werkbund Exhibition.
1 In the exhibition catalogue, the room is called the living room. See also
Karin Kirsch, Die Weienhofsiedlung, Stuttgart 1987, p. 36.
62 Floor plan
Samt und Seide Caf (Velvet and Silk Caf) Together with Lilly Reich, Mies created a temporary installation for
Berlin, Germany, temporary installation for an exhibition 1927 the fashion exhibition Die Mode der Dame (Womens Fashion)
destroyed at the Funkturm in Berlin. At one end of a long hall, coloured fab-
ric was draped over bent tubular metal rods: black, orange and
red velvet; gold, silver, black and lemon-yellow silk.1 As with the
Glass Room, the installation demonstrated a spatial principle that
would come to be known as flowing space in which the different
spatial areas are linked to one another at their corners. In contrast
to the orthogonality of the Glass Room, the character of the fabric
is additionally emphasised by the use of curved forms.
The reconstructed floor plan, which is reminiscent of an
abstract De-Stijl composition, shows the structure of the draped
walls between which Mies chairs and table stood. The sumptious
quality of the fabric is heightened by the light colour of the
linoleum floor.
1 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, New York 1947, p. 50. A detailed
description of this project, which was later also erected in Holland, can be
found in: Christiane Lange, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Architektur fr die
Seidenindustrie, Berlin 2011, p. 7182.
Floor plan 63
Fuchs Gallery, Addition to the Perls House This building is an extension to the Perls House. The scholar and
Berlin-Zehlendorf, Germany, 192728 art collector Eduard Fuchs had since acquired Mies second house
and required additional space to house his collection. The first
room of the extension is an L-shaped library reached via the mu-
sic room of the house, with two exhibition spaces beyond, one of
which echoes the study in the main house.1 The row of five French
windows, complete with its cornice designed in 191112, has also
been mirrored in the extension.
In the ground plan, I have abandoned the usual concept of en-
closed rooms and striven for a series of spatial effects rather than
a row of individual rooms.2 Although Mies was referring here to
his unbuilt project for a brick country house, his words also aptly
describe the character of the Fuchs Gallery. As in the Glass Room
in Stuttgart, the visitor is led along an S-shaped path through the
spaces, which flow into one another. Despite the conceptual con-
trast to the earlier Perls House, the new building also faces onto
the existing garden. The central gallery space opens directly onto
the sunken garden courtyard that Mies had already used to esta-
blish a connection between indoors and outdoors. The continu-
ity of the formal language of the architecture, as seen in the uni-
form appearance of both faades, reinforces the spatial definition
created by the building. By using two similar faades to define a
space either opposite one another, such as in the Afrikanische
Strae housing project, or in an L-shaped constellation as here
the outdoor space becomes part of the architecture.
The addition has an accessible flat roof upon which a further
building element is placed at right angles. The roof terrace and
the pavilion can only be reached via the main house. The pavilion
is connected to the house by a horizontal plane that arches very
slightly to create the visual impression of a perfectly horizontal
line.3 From the roof terrace one can look over the garden as well
as over the L-shaped complex of the Werner House next door,
where the gesture of a wing extending into the landscape reoccurs.

During the Nazi period, the building was altered beyond recog
nition: further rooms were added, new windows inserted and the
interior completely rearranged. Since then, the original condi-
tion of the exterior has been reconstructed. However, the design
of the glass wall where the old and new parts join is a matter of
speculation as there are neither documented plans nor historical
photos.4 The internal arrangement has since been modified to suit
the needs of a school, and the building now has a link to a new
building. The sunken courtyard area made of rough-hewn stone,
which shares the same design as that in the garden of the Werner
House, may still be intact beneath the grass lawn.

When asked which year he felt was especially pivotal for the de-
velopment of modernism, Mies answered: I would say that 1926
was the most significant year. Looking back it seems that it was
not a year in the sense of time. It was a year of great realization
of awareness.5 This fundamental shift that Mies refers to is re-
flected in his built work from this period. From this time onwards
his buildings took on a much more avant-garde, modern charac-
ter similar to that adopted by other architects some years before.
If one compares the Mosler House, completed in 1926, with the
Lange and Esters Houses designed in 1927, one can see a radic
al stylistic change in direction. The Fuchs Gallery was built during
this period of reorientation. As such the building exhibits elements
of the new as well as the old.
If, however, we consider Mies work in terms of its spatial struc-
ture rather than its stylistic expression, the change in direction is
not quite so abrupt. While the Fuchs Gallery anticipates elements
of Mies later work, it is still very much part of his early oeuvre.
As if wishing to underline the continuity of his work, this building
First floor plan

View from the garden 65
reuses a motif that he designed 16 years earlier and creates an L-
shaped space that was to become formative for the future.
1 The original floor plan of the executed design, dated 10 May 1928, is
available in the building records for the Hermannstrae 1416 in the
Bau- und Wohnungsaufsichtsamt Zehlendorf (Building Control and Housing
Department). Very few photos remain of the original building.
2 Mies van der Rohe in a manuscript from 19 June 1924, in: Fritz Neumeyer,
The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge,
Mass., 1991, p. 250. Mies was describing his unbuilt design for a brick
country house.
3 Jrn Kppler, Natur und Poetik in Mies van der Rohes Berliner Werken,
in: Christophe Girot (ed.), Mies als Grtner, Zurich 2011, p. 33.
4 Dietrich von Beulwitz, who renovated the building, assembled a
collection of all the available documents he could find (to date still in his
ownership) that record the original condition of the building. For further
information on the renovation, see: Dietrich von Beulwitz, The Perls House
by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Architectural Design, vol. 1112, 1983.
Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2006, p. 20 (in: Interbuild, June 1959).
View from the garden

Extension
66 View into the garden
Faade of the extension fuchs gallery, addition to the perls house 67
Lange and Esters Houses The two neighbouring houses for the managing directors of the
Krefeld, Germany, 192730 Verseidag silk-weaving mills differ markedly from the buildings
in the surroundings. Although faced with brick, the predominant
building material in the region, their flat roofs and L-shaped ar-
rangement lend them a sculptural appearance of cubist volumes.
The lack of overhanging eaves and projecting bays heightens the
sense of geometric clarity.
The appearance of the buildings changes as one moves around
them. From the garden one sees a stepped arrangement with
large windows and terraces. Some of the windowpanes can be
lowered into the floor. The division between inside and outside
is overcome by staggering the buildings, allowing diagonal views
from outside through the interior to the outside areas beyond.
Transitional zones are also used to create a sense of interlocking
spaces. The roofed-over terraces, for example, are given windows
to b ecome outdoor rooms.1 While the building volumes pres-
ent a closed, block-like frontage to the road, the reverse effect is
created on the garden-side: the building and terraces transition
into the landscape.
It is apparent when visiting both buildings consecutively that
they were designed together. They share not only the same con-
struction methods and details but also the same principal spa-
tial arrangement, with only slight variations. The centre of each
house is an elongated hallway which leads on to the various
rooms. In the Lange House to the west, this hallway ends with
an apse which was designed to hold an organ and could be sep
arated off from the main space using a curtain. In both houses,
the rooms of the owners were located to the west with a simi-
larly L-shaped dining room between the hallway and the roofed-
over terrace. All of these rooms open directly onto an outdoor
space, as do the series of bedrooms, each with an own bathroom,
on the upper floor.
Although the houses are brick buildings, the long horizon-
tal bands of windows suggest a more modern construction tech-
nique: embedded within the walls are numerous concealed steel
members that together constitute a complex steel structure. Al
though the brick facing made of Bockhorn brick laid in English
bond creates the impression of solid masonry walls, especially
as wall planes extend out into the garden, they are in fact simply
a facing layer. The meticulously executed brickwork is simply a
skin, while the loadbearing walls are made of standard brick ma-
sonry with a different bond. 2 The choice of brick bond gives the
facing skin a more abstract treatment than the Dutch bond used
for the earlier Kempner, Mosler and Wolf Houses, and window
lintels and coping details have not been articulated. The walls
are capped by a narrow metal sheet covering while the window
openings look as if they have been cut directly out of the sur-
face of the wall.
Philip Johnson remarked on Mies use of brickwork as follows:
His admiration led him to extraordinary measures: in order to in-
sure the evenness of the bonding at corners and apertures, he cal-
culated all dimensions in brick lengths and occasionally went so
far as to separate the under-fired long bricks from the over-fired
short ones, using the long in one dimension and the short in the
other.3 The striped appearance of the brickwork that can be seen
under certain lighting conditions further emphasizes the horizon-
tality of the buildings.
Although both houses are built of brick, their large horizontal
windows are more reminiscent of the unrealised Concrete Coun-
try House project that Mies designed in 1923 to demonstrate the
particular potential of concrete. He argued that in concrete walls,
which he described as a skin, it was possible to place windows
freely as needed: I cut openings into the walls where I need them
for view or illumination.4 The windows in the houses for the two
art collectors in Krefeld frame views of the landscape that enter
into a dialogue with the paintings hung in the interiors.
68 Side entrance, Esters House

Street elevation, Esters House
Side courtyard, Esters House 69
70
First floor plans
Ground floor plans lange and esters house 71
Later alterations to the buildings
Both buildings are now part of an art gallery and their interiors
have therefore been simplified. Numerous architectural elements
and fittings have been removed, including doors, fitted display
cabinets, partitioning walls made of timber panelling, cupboards
that were room dividers, curtains, ceiling lights designed by Mies
as well as the travertine slabs that projected out of the walls as
ledges for sculptures. Consequently, the spaces in the interiors
appear not only more purist but also more open and flowing than
they originally were. The niche for the organ in the Lange House
was closed off and the room has remained in this state since 1961
when Yves Klein painted the entire room white and declared it a
work of art. This void space was restored in 2009. Outside, the
staircase leading to the entrance of the Esters House has been al-
tered by extending one of the retaining walls.5
The buildings as seen from the present

Mies remarked some time later that he had originally wanted to
employ more glass for these houses, which were built around the
same time as the Barcelona Pavilion and Villa Tugendhat, and this
has led these houses to be regarded as somewhat obsolete and
compromised in his oeuvre. In retrospect, however, they reveal the
ideological tension in his work at that time. On the one hand he
sought to find a specific tectonic expression and haptic sensibility
for each building material, and on the other he was interested in
the open plan spatial concepts of the avant-garde and their drive
towards abstraction.
Although here the rooms are traditional separate entities each
separated off by a door, and a free arrangement of the plan is only
partially indicated, Mies was nevertheless able to create a sense
of openness using diagonal visual axes. However, the large open
ings for the multi-leaf glass doors and the windows could only be
realised with the considerable utilisation of steel members. The
clear cubist clarity of the building volumes resolves this tension
while the white plastered interiors continue to lend themselves to
being used as a place for exhibiting works of art.
1 The principle of using windows between two outdoor areas can also be
seen in Mies earlier Riehl, Urbig and Kempner Houses.
2 While the working drawings set out the precise position of every facing
brick, the loadbearing walls were executed in cross bond. Cf. Kent Klein-
mann and Leslie Van Duzer, Mies van der Rohe The Krefeld Villas, New
York 2005, p. 69.
4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Building (1923), in: Fritz Neumeyer, The
Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge, Mass.
1991,
p. 243.
5 For further information on the restoration of the house, see: Klaus Rey-
mann and Patrick Hoefer, Eine behutsame Erneuerung Restaurierung von
Haus Lange und Haus Esters, in: Das Architekten-Magazin, vol. 1, 2001,
pp. 2833.
72 Interiors, Lange House

View from the garden, Lange House
Terrace, Lange House lange and esters house 73
74 West faades, Lange House
View from the garden, Lange House
Side courtyard, Lange House lange and esters house 75
Barcelona Pavilion It was the most difficult work which ever confronted me, because
International Exposition, Barcelona, Spain, 192829 I was my own client, said Mies. I could do what I liked.1 The
reconstructed commission from the German Government to build the German
Pavilion for the International Exposition in Barcelona lacked both a
programme as well as exhibits to put on show. The official request
was simply for a building to represent the nation, which caused a
contemporary commentator to describe it as architecture as fine
art.2 Mies was even able to propose where the building should
be sited: at the end of a long square.
Raised on a podium made of travertine are a series of separ
ate wall planes and two pools of water, creating a succession of
spaces that flow into one another. The indoor and outdoor spaces
are interwoven into a complex constellation in which the walls
structure but no longer enclose space. Instead of a row of indi-
vidual rooms, wrote Mies, I have striven for a series of spatial
effects.3 In contrast to the smaller, more enclosed pool, which
is lined with black glass reflecting Georg Kolbes sculptural figure
entitled Dawn, the large pool in which the water appears to
be light green4 is light and open.
The walls are made of sumptuous materials including Roman
travertine, green polished Tinian marble and Vert antique from
the French Alps. In the central space of the interior is a wall plane
made of Moroccan onyx dor with a honey-yellow colour. For the
glazed walls, an entire repertoire of materials have been emplo-
yed: in addition to transparent glass, the building makes use of
green and grey glass, frosted glass as well as black opaque glass
for the table tops. Mies specially designed Barcelona chairs and
ottomans, with their chrome-plated steel frame and white glac
leather upholstering stand on a black velour carpet in the interior.
Mies had learned to assess marble in his fathers stonemasons
firm. The selection of German stone that had been proposed was
not noble5 enough in his eyes, and so he went in search of a
suitable specimen himself in a Hamburg stoneyard in which he dis-
covered a block of onyx to his liking. Listen, let me see it, and
they at once shouted: No, no, no, that cant be done, for Heavens
sake you mustnt touch that marvellous piece. But I said: Just give
me a hammer, will you, and Ill show you how we used to do that
at home. So reluctantly they brought a hammer, and they were
curious whether I would want to chip away a corner. But no, I hit
the block hard just once right in the middle, and off came a thin
slab the size of my hand. Now go and polish it at once so that I
can see it. And so we decided to use onyx.6
The onyx wall is placed as a freestanding plane in the pavil
ion. One evening as I was working late on that building I made a
sketch of a freestanding wall, and I got a shock. I knew that it was
a new principle.7 This principle was to become a central theme
of the architectural concept and is experienced physically within
the pavilion. On ascending the stairs up to the podium, visitors
are led in a U-turn around a glass wall into the interior of the pa-
vilion. The principle of the freestanding wall was instrumental in
the design process. Sergius Ruegenberg, who worked in Mies of-
fice, described how the design was developed using a model, a
method that was typical for Mies. His later office in Chicago was
like a large model workshop.
I made a base out of plasticine at a scale of 1:50. [] Then I
cut strips of card at the height of the walls, about 3metres (6cm
in the model), and stuck coloured Japanese paper onto them. []
We also needed strips of glass, which I obtained from a glazier.
[] Now we could start to play: because the base was soft, the
walls stayed upright. [] The walls were moved back and forth,
and the illumination of the room was examined using a luminous
wall. Once the position of the walls and the rooms was decided
on, a piece of cardboard was laid on top for the ceiling. [] We
kept on removing the cardboard roof to experiment with the pos
itioning of the columns. For the pools I had a light-green piece of
cardboard and a black piece of card for the smaller pool.8
Floor plan
76 View looking south
Sculpture by Georg Kolbe
View from outside 77
78 Interior areas
Outdoor areas barcelona pavilion 79
The roof is borne by eight evenly spaced columns that are po- of the marble is reflected about a horizontal line at half-height.
sitioned to one side of the walls. Together with the roof slab, the In the original wall there was also a horizontal joint Mies descri-
columns form a structural unit that represents a separate architec- bed the space as being twice the height of the onyx block but
tonic element independent of the non-loadbearing partitioning the stone patterning was not originally reflected.
walls. Different means of expression are used to emphasise the
contrast between the two elements: while the symmetrical regular The building as seen from the present
ity and static repose of the columns and roof emphasises its struc- Although specific details of the reconstructed building differ from
tural clarity, the walls create a labyrinthine constellation of spaces the original, it still provides us with an insight into Mies architec-
that lead the visitor in a circulatory passage through the pavilion. ture. Robin Evans discovered in his own slides of the building the
And while the columns are made to recede by giving them a re- phenomenon of a horizontal mirrored axis a product of the mod
flective surface treatment that blends their materiality into their ern version of the onyx wall that he argues makes it hard to tell
surroundings, the walls are clad with extremely sumptuous mate- apart what is up and what is down: Notice the difficulty of dis-
rials that assert themselves and define the character of the space tinguishing the travertine floor, which reflects the light, from the
around them. plaster ceiling, which receives it. If the floor and the ceiling had
The industrial-looking columns have neither base nor capital been of the same material, the difference in brightness would have
and span between the floor and roof slab, while the roof slab ap- been greater. Here, Mies used material asymmetry to create op-
pears to rest like a homogenous plane on the walls. The entire tical symmetry, rebounding the natural light in order to make the
building is, however, a steel construction that is clad with differ ceiling more sky-like and the ambiance more expansive.12 This
ent materials. Even the roof which was erroneously described as phenomenon he has described as a paradoxical symmetry, al
being a monolithic white slab9 in an early article on the pavil though we now know that at the time the photos of the pavilion
ion is a hollow steel construction. During construction, a further were retouched to emphasise this effect.
sheet of metal was riveted in place at one corner near the entrance The built context in which the building stands has since been
in order to achieve the necessary cantilever, reported Ruegen- altered. Originally a row of classical columns stood in front of the
berg. Mies did not like that at all, but in the end the whole steel building through which a path and stairs led up to the Spanish
construction of the roof was rendered giving it the impression village, a part of the original exposition that still exists today. Vis
of a slab (of concrete for example) with a thickness of 24cm.10 itors passed through this building and past the plateau. The Barce-
That the roof plane is articulated as a flat surface without sup- lona Pavilion is more than just a building; it is a complex in which
porting beams is a direct consequence of the principle of the free the interior fuses with the architectural landscape of its surround-
plan. Le Corbusier had previously illustrated this same principle ings to form a single entity.
in his concept of the plan libre executed in concrete, where two
horizontal slabs sandwich a space between them. Colin Rowe de- 1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Henry Thomas Cadbury-
Brown in: Architectural Association Journal, July/Aug. 1959, pp. 2728.
scribes the reasoning behind this: In fact, the appearance of
2 Justus Bier, Mies van der Rohes Reichspavillon in Barcelona, in: Die
beams could only tend to prescribe fixed positions for the parti- Form, 15 Aug. 1929, p. 423.
tions; and, since these fixed positions would be in line with the 3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in a manuscript dated 19 June 1924, in: Fritz
columns, it was therefore essential, if the independence of col Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art,
umns and partitions was to be asserted with any eloquence, that Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 250. Mies was referring to his unbuilt design for
a Brick Country House.
the underside of the slab should be expressed as an uninterrup-
4 Cf. note 2.
ted horizontal surface.11 5 Cited by Sergius Ruegenberg in a manuscript, Mies van der Rohe Archive,
While the classical structure of columns always sees column, MoMA in New York.
capital and architrave as a single tectonic unit, in the case of the 6 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Ulrich Conrads in 1964,
pavilion, the beam is concealed within the ceiling. Nevertheless produced on a phonograph record, Mies in Berlin, Bauwelt,
Berlin 1966.
the cruciform columns are not entirely devoid of classical qual
7 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in an interview on 13 Feb. 1952, in: Master
ities: the indented vertical profiling recalls the fluting of columns Builder, no. 3, 1952, p. 28.
from antiquity. The columns in Barcelona are made out of a com- 8 Sergius Ruegenberg in a manuscript in: Eva-Maria Amberger, Sergius
plex assembly of standard profiles. Four rounded-edged angle Ruegenberg Architekt zwischen Mies van der Rohe und Hans Scharoun,
Berlin 2000, p. 78 (translation JR).
profiles of even dimensions are welded together with four T-pro-
9 Cf. note 2.
files with symmetrically trimmed crossbars to form the shape of
10 Cf. note 8, p. 81.
a cross. An encasing mantle of chrome-plated sheet metal defi- 11 Colin Rowe, Neo-Classicism and Modern Architecture II (written
nes the final form of the column but does not reveal how the pro- 195657, first published in 1973), in: The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and
files were put together. This mantle can be thought of as a skin, Other Essays, Cambridge, Mass. 1987, p.143.
12 Robin Evans, Mies van der Rohes Paradoxical Symmetries, in: AA
and Mies did indeed term skeleton frame buildings as skin and
Files, no. 19, 1990, pp.6364.
bones architecture.

After the International Exposition, the Barcelona Pavilion was dis-
mantled. Although the original intention was to rebuild it at ano-
ther location, the individual elements have since been lost. Much
later, in 1986, the architects Ignasi de Sol-Morales, Cristian Ci-
rici and Fernando Ramos reconstructed the building, although
not quite on the exact same spot. Unlike the original building, the
roof slab is made of reinforced concrete. The colour of the glazed
walls, described as mouse-grey and bottle-green, also appears
more pronounced in historical photos than in the reconstruction.
In the interior a red curtain is also hung, although this cannot be
seen in the original photos. The honey-yellow onyx wall of the ori-
ginal is much redder in the modern reconstruction, and the grain
80 barcelona pavilion
German Electrical Industry Pavilion Although the second of the pavilions that Mies designed for the
World Exposition, Barcelona, Spain, 1929 World Exposition in Barcelona appears to be an antithesis of his
destroyed more famous Barcelona Pavilion, there are conceptual similarities. 1
Here the supporting construction is also separated from the wall,
and here too eight columns arranged in two parallel rows support
the roof. The use of I-beams as pilasters appears here for the first
time in Mies oeuvre and presents a structural system that spans
20 metres.2 This pavilion also employs visual means to create the
illusion of an expansive interior. From outside, the pavilion is as it
seems: a white cube. The interior walls, however, were papered
with photographic panels that were assembled to form vast pan
oramas, creating the illusion of an expanse of space. Although the
interior design was not from Mies own hand, he was obsessed
with the idea of photographic wallpaper and even applied for a
patent. He wrote, Through this invention, it becomes possible
to manufacture wallpapers that create an entirely new effect, es-
pecially with regard to the impression of depth. [] A particu-
lar advantage of the approach described in this invention is that
wallpaper designs will no longer need to be made but can be re-
produced from nature in the form of photographs that are then
used to make wallpaper.3
The square floor plan that Mies had previously avoided can be
attributed to the need for four interior wall elevations of equal im-
portance. Although the ceiling spanned in one direction, this was
not visible due to the insertion of a suspended ceiling at a height
of about 10 metres. The design went to great lengths to commu-
nicate the impression of simplicity, concealing the rainwater gut-
ters by incorporating them into the white rendered brick walls.
1 A comprehensive analysis of the building can be found in: Mechthild

Heuser, Die Kunst der Fuge. Von der AEG-Turbinenfabrik zum Illinois
Institute of Technology: Das Stahlskelett als sthetische Kategorie,
Dissertation Humboldt-Universitt, Berlin 1998, pp. 8090.
2 The dimensions 20 by 20 meters and 15 metres high are given in the
Jahrbuch der Verkehrsdirektion, Verffentlichungen der BEWAG, vol. 10,
p. 39ff. In the Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung from 21 Aug. 1929, p. 546,
Walter Genzmer writes: Its external walls are made of brick masonry,
reinforced in sections by iron columns. (translation JR)
3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Verfahren zum Bedrucken von
Tapetenbahnen, patent application submitted on 12 March 1938,
reproduced in: Helmut Reuter and Birgit Schulte (eds.), Mies and Modern
Living: Interiors, Furniture, Photography, Ostfildern 2008, p. 266.
Elevation
Floor plan 81
Tugendhat House Situated on a steeply sloping site, the house all but turns its back
Brno, Czech Republic, 192830 on the public street. It is so uncompromisingly oriented towards
the garden that the entrance elevation offers no views into the
house. Even the front door is tucked away out of sight. A single
inviting gesture is, however, made from the entrance in the form
of a framed panoramic view over the roofs of the city to the castle
on the horizon. It serves as an open belvedere. From the street,
the building appears to consist of several distinct and clearly dif-
ferentiated elements: an artificial plateau, a roof slab held up by a
column, a non-loadbearing milk-glass wall that spans membrane-
like from floor to ceiling, and a monumental chimney.1
From the entrance hall, a staircase leads down to the living
area. At the foot of the stairs, the path appears to lead directly to-
wards a table in the library, presumably the owners desk, before
opening out onto an expansive living area. This central space can
be transformed into an open terrace through the ability to lower
sections of the glass walls into the floor. The room is a Gesamt-
kunstwerk: the house, its furniture and fittings are conceived as a
whole. Mies not only designed a number of items of furniture for
the house, including the Brno Chair and Brno Armchair, but also
specified where they should stand. Even the round dining table
is anchored to the floor.
The atmosphere is dominated by a radical sense of open space
that extends out into the landscape as well as by the colours of
the precious materials: Living room wall: tawny gold and white
onyx. Dining room wall: striped black and pale brown Macassar
ebony. Curtains: black and beige raw silk, white velvet. Rug: natural
wool. Floor: white linoleum. Chairs: white vellum, natural pigskin
and pale green cowhide upholstery.2 The colours of the textile
furnishings and furniture can be attributed to Mies partner Lilly
Reich. Alongside the green Barcelona Chairs stands a red recliner.
In contrast to this polychromatic use of colour, however, the build
ing itself expresses colour only through the materials used. Des-
pite Mies professed love of natural materials,3 this did not mean
that these were employed only in untreated form. In his later work,
for example, Mies would employ aluminium in anodized form so
that it acquired a bronze colour; in the Villa Tugendhat, the inter
ior columns of the steel supporting structure are elaborately en-
cased in a chrome mantle and the outdoor columns given an arti-
ficial patina to bring out the high copper content of the brass so
that it looks like bronze. In the ancillary spaces and lower floor, by
contrast, the construction is not clad.
In Brno, Mies transferred the concept of the open plan he had
used for the Barcelona Pavilion to a residential context, applying
it, however, not to the whole house but just to the lower floor with
the representative living areas. The upper storey with the bed
rooms contains a series of traditional enclosed rooms.4 The skel-
etal frame construction made it possible to employ both traditio-
nal as well as modern spatial concepts. Although the two concepts
are opposing, the contrast between the two is not apparent as the
architecture consistently reconciles the two. The cruciform columns
are likewise a synthesis of the traditional and modern, their cur-
ved mantle creating a vertical delineation reminiscent of the flut
ing of classical pillars. At the same time the reflective chrome sur-
face has a dematerialising effect. Kenneth Frampton has remarked
on the tectonic implication of this solution:
Like Le Corbusiers piloti in his purist plan libre, this col
umn has neither base nor capital. Both column types are, in fact,
abstractions of the idea of support, since, due to the fact that no
beams are expressed in either instance, a somewhat insubstant
ial act of bearing is conveyed by the form. In both instances the
ceiling is treated as a flat, continuous plane. Here we see how mo-
dern, beamless construction favours the suppression of the frame;
that is to say, it eliminates the very trabeation.5
Even though Mies never described it as such, the spatial con
stellation creates a Promenade architecturale that leads the visitor
Upper floor plan

View from the street
imperceptibly from one spatial zone to the next, the precise use
of lighting choreographing the visitors passage through space.
Rather than finding themselves suddenly in the midst of the ar-
chitecture, visitors are gradually drawn in through a series of tran-
sitional zones a phenomenon that Adolf Loos termed Introduc-
tion6 without being afforded a view of the entire building from
any single point. Silk curtains hung from tracks can also be drawn
as dividers to create different spatial constellations. In this house,
Mies also takes one of his central themes, the interplay between in-
door and outdoor spaces, to new heights. In addition to using tran-
sitional spaces such as the conservatory adjoining the open living
area, he also places freestanding surfaces of luxurious materials,
such as the onyx wall and the macassar wood screen, using them to
define space in multiple ways. The protective gesture of the roun-
ded screen, for example, is a remarkable architectonic moment
precisely because it simultaneously also creates an entirely differ
ent situation, demonstratively opening out onto the landscape.

The Jewish owners were only able to live in their house for a few
years before having to flee the Nazi regime. The building was
seized and plundered. Over the years, it was used alternately as
a gymnasium, childrens hospital and guesthouse, each time ex-
periencing fresh alterations. The successive reshaping and disfigu-
ration of the architecture continued when the building was reno-
vated in the 1980s. Tiling was removed and the building painted
with a white synthetic paint that damaged the material of the struc-
ture. The last remaining 15m2-large retractable pane of glass was
also lost at this time. The most recent renovation from 201012
was accompanied by extensive material investigations,7 and the
original condition has been so exactingly reconstructed that it is
now hard to tell what is original and what is reconstruction. Such
endeavours can nevertheless only be an approximation. The re-
newed travertine steps leading down to the garden, for example,
were accidentally laid not with but across the grain of the stone
material. Similarly, the sculpture in front of the onyx wall by Wil-
helm Lehmbruck that played a crucial role in the architectural con-
cept is lacking.

Those who have visited the house in the past will be surprised to
see that it is no longer white. The hydraulic lime render has been
mixed with locally sourced sand, resulting in a slight beige coloura-
tion. The walls in the interior are likewise no longer brilliant white.
A very fine plaster has been used and left unpainted, and on close
inspection one can see the presence of sand here too. Even the
tiles and linoleum flooring are not white but have a slight cream
tone that harmonizes well with the travertine paving.
Mies precise detailing can be seen everywhere in the reno-
vation. The bathrooms have been reconstructed according to his-
torical black and white photographs. Computer models of the
washbasins were made from the photos and used to cast the sa-
nitaryware, and even the taps and light switches have been me-
ticulously recreated and the furniture reconstructed. The macas-
sar wood screen, previously believed to be lost, was discovered in
the citys former Gestapo headquarters and reinstalled. The me-
ticulous attention to detail in the reconstruction work contributes
to the impression one has as a visitor of having travelled back in
time to the point at which the key was handed over.
Soon after the villa was first built, a debate ensued on the
question: can one live in the Tugendhat House? The owners re-
futed the claim that they lived as if on show. The house is now a
museum with the architecture as its principal exhibit. Shortly after
completing the Villa Tugendhat, Mies did actually create a house
as an exhibition. In 1931, in a trade fair hall in Berlin, he desig-
ned a completely furnished house, also with an open plan and a
Entrance
Interior of the entrance area
84 Reconstructed bathroom
Living room
Conservatory Tugendhat house 85
retractable glass wall, whose only function was to advertise the
spatial qualities of the architecture.
1 Gottfried Semper described the properties of walls as non-loadbearing

elements in his book The Four Elements of Architecture. Whether or not
Mies had actively concerned himself with this theory, it is instructive in ana-
lysing the architecture as each element terrace, roof, wall and hearth
has been given a specific materiality.
3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: I love natural materials in: Moiss Puente
(ed.), Conversations with Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2006, p. 60.
4 An analysis of the spatial concept is given in: Wolf Tegethoff, Mies van der
Rohe: The Villas and Country Houses, Cambridge, Mass. 1995, pp. 9098.
5 Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of
Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, Chicago,
Cambridge, Mass. 1995, p. 177.
6 Cf. Heinrich Kulka (ed.), Adolf Loos Das Werk des Architekten (Adolf
Loos The Architects Work), Vienna 1931, pp. 3637.
7 Several universities were involved in the scientific conservation study,
which was conducted under the leadership of Ivo Hammer.
86 Living areas
Terrace overlooking the garden tugendhat house 87
Henke House, Addition Although the plan shows an L-shaped space and the section sug-
Essen, Germany, 1930 gests a two-storey extension, Mies addition was a single storey
destroyed rear extension to an existing building from 1911.1 The L-shape re-
sults from the connection between the extension and the existing
room and the second storey is a lower storey into which the vast
glass wall can be sunk. Mies addition extends the house into the
garden and employs a floor paving made of Roman travertine that
covers the entire terrace so that indoors and outdoors become a
single space when the window is sunk into the floor. The addition
was destroyed during the war.
1 The building records for the Virchowstrae 124058 at Institute for the
Protection and Conservation of Monuments in Essen document just the
original building.
Elevation
Verseidag Factory
Krefeld, Germany, 193031
extended in 1935
Third floor plan

The factory for the Vereinigten Seidenwebereien AG (Verseidag)
silk-weaving mills consists of separate buildings that are grouped to
form an ensemble. Mies is regarded as the author of the four-storey
warehouse and the attached shed-roofed building. In addition to
the plans and details drawn up in his office, there are also perspec-
tive drawings showing an extension of the building. A couple of
years after the first phase of building, two further storeys were ad-
ded to the warehouse and the area covered by the shed roofs was
extended. The project was realised in conjunction with the factorys
own building department that also constructed other buildings on
the site. Mies was involved here as a consultant, also with respect
to the formation of the outdoor spaces.1 Although the list of works
mentions this project as an ensemble of factory buildings and po-
wer house,2 one can only speculate on the role he played in the
overall distribution of the buildings. This aspect of the factory com-
plex is, however, of relevance for its later interpretation.
Although the building designed by Mies consists of two dif-
ferent volumes, one sees only a rectangular block on arrival. Al
though actually L-shaped, due to an escape stair attached at one
end, and despite the fact that the ground floor extends into a dif-
ferent building type altogether, a shed-roofed hall, the impression
of the block is of clear rectangular form. This is because the build
ing is set apart clearly from the existing surrounding buildings. The
two volumes do not abut directly but are separated by a transi-
tional space, marked in the plans as a connecting space. This
is visible from outside as an indentation into which the delivery
ramp has been inserted.
The design for a factory for the textiles industry followed from
the commissions for the Lange and Esters Houses, and thus con-
tinued his work for these clients. The shed-roofed building was
conceived for the dye works, its north-facing roof lights providing
the required even level of illumination. The four-storey block was
used to store the cloth. Both parts of the building are steel const-
ructions. While the I-beams of the shed-roofed section are left ex-
posed, they are sheathed in the warehouse building. Mies strove
for a construction that is as clear as possible.3 In contrast to the
cruciform columns of the Barcelona Pavilion and the Tugendhat
House, which are set apart from the wall, these H-shaped columns
stand in the same plane as the walls a concept that in retrospect
would appear to be a model for Mies later work.
Mies was familiar with the task of designing a factory, having
previously worked on the AEG Factory project in the office of Peter
Behrens. He noted: Since the authentic approach to architecture
should always be objective, we find the only valid solutions of that
time to be in those cases where objective limits were imposed
and there was no opportunity for subjective license. This was true
of the field of industrial building. It is enough to remember the
significant creations of Peter Behrens for the electrical industry.4
But, like Behrens before him, Mies was not free from classical ref
erences in the design of the factory. Despite the objective cha-
racter of the building, and although Mies himself noted that he
who builds a factory as if it were a temple lies and disfigures the
landscape,5 the faades of the building exhibit classical tenden-
cies in their proportions and articulation.
While Behrens follows the example of Schinkel and emphasises
the corners, Mies allows the skeleton frame construction to show on
the faade. The structural frame is exposed across the entire glazed
north faade, delineating the faade of the building. The result is
nevertheless composed: the drainpipes are arranged rhythmically to
create a 1-2-3-2-1 pattern of bays. The plinth is also emphasised: a
brick band around the perimeter laid in cross bond lends expression
to the plinth. Mies used this brick bond exclusively for plinth and
skirting, as in his design for the houses on the Afrikanische Strae.
The window openings in the ground floor also have different pro-
portions to those in the upper storeys: below reflecting the Gol-
den Section, above with 1:2 proportions.
South frontage
North faade
90 Escape stair balustrade
Warehouse
Window detail verseidag factory 91
Shed roof
92 Staircase
Later alterations to the building der Rohe Architektur fr die Seidenindustrie (Architecture for the Silk-
The later addition of further storeys to the warehouse was achie- Weaving Industry), Berlin 2011, p. 154.
2 Cf. Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, New York 1947, p. 199.
ved using steel beams that span the entire almost 20-metre depth
3 Cited in Christiane Lange, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Architektur fr die
of the building, allowing a column-free space to be created in the Seidenindustrie (Architecture for the Silk-Weaving Industry), Berlin 2011,
top storey. Later insertions have, however, obstructed a clear view p. 154.
through this space. The glazing has been replaced in all but five 4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe wrote this in 1940. Published in: Philip
Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, New York 1947, p. 195.
of the windows on the ground floor and the new window profiles
5 Notebook entry from 1928, cited in: Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word
are noticeably thicker than before. Solar blinds have also been ad-
Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 275.
ded that change the proportions of the windows. In the main stair- 6 Alison and Peter Smithson, Mies van der Rohe in: Oswald Mathias Ungers
case the sill height has been raised and the glazing replaced with (ed.), Verffentlichungen zur Architektur, vol. 20, TU Berlin 1968, p. 9.
tinted glass. The factory remained in use until recently. 7 Ibid., p. 11.
8 Colin Rowe, Neo-Classicism and Modern Architecture II (written in
195657, first published in 1973), in: The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa,
The building as seen from the present and Other Essays, Cambridge, Mass. 1987, pp. 144145.
For the architects Alison and Peter Smithson, the factory building
represents a new concept of defining space that would later re-
appear in much of Mies later work: This open-space-structured
urban pattern first became real in his work in the grouping of the
out-riding pavilion buildings at the Krefeld factory in which are dis-
played all the formal characteristics in the buildings, in the lay-
out, and in the planting (weeping willows, smooth lawns) that
we are so familiar with from the IIT campus. In some way it was all
already there at Krefeld.6 Looking back, they trace a path from
the spatial concept of the factory to the Lafayette Park project,
which in 1968 they wrote was certainly the most civilized dwell
ing-quarter of this century so far.7
Even though this deduction may seem a little exaggerated to-
day, other aspects of the factory can in retrospect be regarded as
pioneering. Not only the staircase with its formally reduced ba-
lustrade and the exposed wide-flange I-beam, but also the H-
shaped columns can be seen as a precursor to the architecture of
the Illinois Institute of Technology projects. This shift in the tecto-
nic system of the column was analysed by Colin Rowe, who by ex-
amining different column concepts traces the fundamental deve-
lopment of Mies architectural system. Although the following was
written about the American projects, his analysis applies equally
to the Verseidag factory:
Mies characteristic German column was circular or cruciform;
but his new column became H-shaped, became that I-beam which
is now almost a personal signature. Typically, his German column
had been clearly distinguished from walls and windows, isolated
from them in space; and typically, his new column became an ele-
ment integral with the envelope of the building where it came to
function as a kind of mullion or residue of wall. Thus the column
section was not without some drastic effects on the entire space
of the building.
The circular or cruciform section had tended to push partitions
away from the column. The new tectonic tended to drag them to-
wards it. The old column had offered a minimum of obstruction
to a horizontal movement of space; but the new column presents
a distinctly more substantial stop. The old column had tended to
cause space to gyrate around it, had been central to a rather tenta-
tively defined volume; but the new column instead acts as the en-
closure or the external definition of a major volume in space. The
spatial functions of the two are thus completely differentiated.8
While the cruciform or circular columns bore a flat roof slab, the
new column has a direction and connects to a system of b eams.
The dividing walls are then installed in line with these axes. Even
though this is a typical construction principle for industrial build
ings, it is relevant from a tectonic point of view, because it re
presents a return to the frame as a structural principle.
1 More displeasing than anything is the two-storey section. The more I

think about this corner, the less I like it, wrote Mies about the design for
an extension in a letter to the building department from 6 March 1937.
I would suggest maintaining the clear rectangular form of this building,
certainly on the first floor, and not extend it to meet the old part of the
building as originally planned. Cited in Christiane Lange, Ludwig Mies van
verseidag factory 93
Model House for the Berlin Building Exposition This work is not an actual building but a full-scale model of a house
Berlin, Germany, 1931 erected as a temporary exhibit for a building exposition. 1 The roof
destroyed plane rests on a grid of 15 cylindrical columns that are chrome in
the living area and painted white in the bedroom and outdoor
areas. This construction made it possible to arrange the walls freely
and independently of the supporting structure. As further indepen-
dent elements, the service areas were arranged in compact enc-
losed blocks. The service area with kitchen and maids room is
placed in the corner of the plan while the bathroom with its roun-
ded wall functions as a spatial divider. The service rooms are min
imised and the rooms they serve maximised.
Visitors are led along an S-shaped path from the entrance to
the living room. On entering, they face a wall behind which the
service area lies. The door to this area is concealed by cladding it
with the same panelling as the wall. The service block is arranged
alongside a long wall that extends out into the garden, and is ab-
utted on the other side by a glass wall. This glass wall can be low
ered into the floor to allow space to flow freely. Unlike in Krefeld,
Brno and Essen, the glass wall is not placed at edge of the room
but in the middle of the space. Even when the wall is closed, the
space still appears to extend visually beyond the glass plane. This
same principle is repeated in the bedroom on the opposite side
of the house. While the living areas open out onto the landscape
in an extroverted manner, the bedroom opens onto an introver-
ted courtyard. This space extends as far as two freestanding walls
that adjoin a pool, in front of which a sculpture by Georg Kolbe
stood as a point of visual focus.
1 The exposition was reported on in Die Form, no. 6 and no. 7, 1931.
Elevation
94 Floor plan
Trinkhalle (Refreshment Stand) This project was a simple modification of the garden wall of the
Dessau, Germany, 1932 Masters House that Walter Gropius had designed for himself.1
reconstructed Mies found a solution that exudes simplicity an architecture of
almost nothing. The means required to achieve this maximum
degree of minimalism were, however, considerable. The detailing
of the window opening was complicated. The steel frame of the
window was mounted on rollers and could be retracted comple-
tely into the wall. Two slots were made in the wall so that when
the window was open, it appeared as if a window had been cut
out of the wall. The Trinkhalle was demolished in 1970 and was re-
constructed in 201314 by the architects Bruno Fioretti Marquez
in an abstracted way.
1 For further information on the history of the building, see: Helmut Erfurth
and Elisabeth Tharandt, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Die Trinkhalle Sein
einziger Bau in Dessau, Dessau 1995. There are no plans of the building
in this publication, however working drawings and details have since
been discovered in the legacy of Eduard Ludwig and are now part of the
collection of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.
Floor plan
View from the street 95
Lemke House From the road, the house appears small and unassuming, an im-
Berlin-Hohenschnhausen, Germany, 193233 pression that heightens the element of surprise when reaching
the entrance at the side. Through the glazed door one has a long
view right through the house out over the lakeside plot. Before
even entering the house, one experiences a characteristic aspect
of the architecture: while the interiors are oriented outwards, the
volume of the building itself shapes the outdoor space.
A step in the volume of the building provides a sense of spa-
tial enclosure for the entrance, which is paved in the same mat
erial as the house itself. To the garden, the building frames a paved
terrace, creating a courtyard-like situation. The terrace was origi-
nally defined by two walnut trees that were placed in two asym-
metrically arranged openings let into the surface of the paving
in such a way that the L-shaped building appears to nestle up to
them. The trees were important as providers of shade as the two
large glazed frontages face south and west.
The house stands on a slightly elevated part of the site and the
terrain was modelled accordingly before work on the actual house
began. The raised situation is evident as a slight incline in the pa-
ved approach to the entrance. Although barely perceptible, this
artificial raising of the house contributes to how the space of the
house and the path down to the lake are perceived. Although the
house turns its back on its neighbours and the street, it is there-
fore still a product of its context.
From within, the house presents a series of framed panoramic
vistas of the landscape extending as far as the opposite side of
the lake. The trees on the horizon also form part of the concept of
the house, contributing to ones perception of the sense of space.
Their presence in the distance makes the relatively modest dimen-
sions of the house seem more expansive. The L-shaped arrange-
ment of the two glazed walls creates a diagonal visual axis not
unlike that in the later extension to the Perls House from the liv
ing room over the terrace to the elongated hall, linking the inter
ior and exterior spaces together in a single spatial composition.
The building itself is enveloped by a plain, unadorned brick
wall in which different sized openings have been cut. The windows
placed at the corners of the rooms have standard metal profiles
as used in industrial facilities. One sees neither window lintels nor
gutters. The incline of the flat roof slopes inwards from the exter-
nal walls to the centre, discharging rainwater in the centre of the
plan. Mies describes how working with brick influenced the de-
sign, calling it one of his teachers: How sensible is this small
handy shape, so useful for every purpose. What logic in its bon-
ding, what liveliness in the play of patterns. What richness in the
simplest wall surfaces. But what discipline this material imposes. 1
Despite the self-evident nature of the brick walls, they serve to
conceal the actual construction, as all one sees is the facing layer
of brickwork. A precisely executed brick bond creates only the ap-
pearance of a solid brick wall. The actual construction consists of
two layers, or leafs, made of different materials with different ma-
sonry bonds, the facing layer of which is anchored back to the in-
ner layer at intervals with ties. The choice of bond, according to a
manual of the day, is determined by economic considerations. As
the facing layer is generally half a brick thick, one should choose
a brick bond that uses as many whole bricks as possible, thus mi-
nimising wastage.2 Mies, however, did not adhere to this, choos
ing a brick bond with the same number of headers and stretchers
that resulted in a considerable degree of wastage. For Mies, the
precision of tectonic means outweighed economic considerations:
Simplicity of construction, clarity of tectonic means, and purity of
material shall be the bearers of a new beauty.3

Karl Lemke, the director of a printing works, and his wife Martha
were only able to live in their house for a short period.4 In 1945,
the childless couple were forced to vacate the house as the pair of
Floor plan
96 View from the street
Garage door and entrance to the house
98 Hall
Living room lemke house 99
View from the street
100 Hall
plots adjoining the Obersee lake were declared part of a prohibi-
ted zone. The building has since been subject to numerous altera-
tions. Interior walls and doors have been changed, a new window
opening was inserted and the garden levelled. From 20002002,
the house was comprehensively renovated and the original situa-
tion was largely reinstated. Some original substance was, however,
lost in the process, including the paving of the entrance pathway,
the garage door and the double winder stairs. The oak parquet
flooring, glazed walls, doors and door handles were reconstruc-
ted, as was the garden.5 Today, the Mies van der Rohe Haus is
open to visitors and is used as an art gallery. However, the white-
walled interiors of the gallery spaces do not entirely reflect the
original condition, as the south wall of the narrow hall was origi-
nally clad with dark wood panelling.

Although the house clearly distances itself from its neighbouring
buildings, one has to agree with Rem Koolhaas commentary that,
It is a mistake to read Mies as a master of the freestanding, or
the autonomous. Mies without context is like a fish out of water.6
Mies own description of his next project for a house can also be
applied to the Lemke House. Here he uses the term beauty,
which he frequently employed, not to describe the built edifice it
self as an object but also the context and the experience of space.
The house was to be built under beautiful trees7 and it was an
unusually beautiful place for building, with a beautiful view to-
wards the water. He describes the design as a beautiful alterna-
tion of quiet seclusion and open spaces.8
Although the Lemke House appears in retrospect to be the
culmination of a long series of freestanding private houses, the
idea of a low, horizontally extending brick building that creates a
courtyard-like situation beneath a group of trees is important for
understanding the development of Mies later works. In the unre-
alised projects that followed and later became known as the court
yard houses, not only do single storey buildings enclose outdoor
spaces, but the houses also have large glazed sections that open
onto these areas. In his early monograph on Mies work, Philip
Johnson even described the Lemke House as a courtyard house.
1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Inaugural address in Chicago on 20 Nov. 1938,
in: Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art,
2 Eduard Jobst Siedler, Die Lehre vom neuen Bauen Ein Handbuch der
Baustoffe und Bauweisen (The Principles of New Building A Manual of
Building Materials and Construction Techniques), Berlin 1932, p. 56.
3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, manuscript from 13 March 1933, in: Fritz
Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art,
4 For a comprehensive documentation of the history of the house, see: Wita
Noack, Konzentrat der Moderne Das Landhaus Lemke von Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe Wohnhaus, Baudenkmal und Kunsthaus (Concentrated
Modernism A Country House for the Lemkes by Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe), Munich, Berlin 2008.
5 The renovation concept is described in: Heribert Suter, Haus Lemke,
Berlin-Hohenschnhausen Baugeschichte, Voruntersuchung und
Instandsetzungskonzept, in: Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.),
Mies van der Rohe: Frhe Bauten. Probleme der Erhaltung, Probleme
der Bewertung (Mies van der Rohe Early Built Works: Problems in their
conservation and assessment), Petersberg 2004, pp. 115128.
6 Rem Koolhaas, Miestakes, in: Phyllis Lambert (ed.), Mies in America,
Montreal, New York 2001, p. 723.
7 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, The H. House, Magdeburg, in: Fritz Neumeyer,
The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge, Mass.
1991, p. 314.
8 Ibid.
lemke house 101

Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, USA, 194158
15
17
}0 18
14
4
10
16
21
1
13
6 7
9 12
19
11
102 Site plan IIT

1 Minerals and Metals Research Building, 194143, 195658
2 Engineering Research Building, 194346
3 Perlstein Hall, 194447
4 Alumni Memorial Hall, 194546
5 Wishnick Hall, 194547
6 Central Vault, 1946
7 Institute of Gas Technology Building, 194750
8 Association of American Railroads Research Laboratory, 194850
9 Boiler Plant, 194850
10 Chapel, 194952
11 Test Cell, 195052
12 Mechanics Research Building, 195052
13 Crown Hall, 195056
14 Carman Hall, 195153
15 Association of American Railroads Mechanical Laboratory, 195253
16 Commons Building, 195254
17 Bailey Hall, 195355
18 Cunningham Hall, 195355
19 Electrical Engineering and Physics Building, 195456
20 Association of American Railroads Engineering Laboratory, 195557
21 Siegel Hall, 195558
Perlstein Hall and Wishnick Hall 103

Shortly after Mies moved from Berlin to Chicago, he began work campus and alters the urban situation. Koolhaas understands Mies
ing on the design for the university campus at which he was la- urban intention as being generic, as a flexible structuring prin-
ter to teach. As director of the architecture department, he saw ciple that is the antithesis of a definitive master plan. Mies does
the buildings as part of a programmatic intention. He designed not design individual buildings, but a formless condition that can
not only the plan for the campus of the future Illinois Institute of manifest itself as building anywhere and be (re)combined in an in-
Technology (IIT) but also the buildings themselves. I firmly be- finite number of configurations.5
lieve a campus must have unity. Allowing every building or group Even though the building volumes have been designed as
of buildings to be designed by a different architect is sometimes clear rectangular forms, they are nevertheless proportioned with
considered democratic, but from my point of view this is just an ex- the utmost of care, as are the spaces between them. People pass
cuse to avoid the responsibility of accepting one clear idea.1 Mies ing through the campus on the road along the symmetrical axis
declared that it was the biggest decision I ever had to make,2 should have originally experienced a rhythmic succession of wider
and presented an ensemble of building volumes arranged along and narrower spaces. The space between the two largest buildings
a symmetrical axis through the central square. The plan takes a ta- should have measured exactly 24 modules and the space to the
bula rasa approach, disregarding the fact that the site was partially south of Perlstein Hall exactly 12.
occupied and situated in a densely populated part of the city. Al
though it was called a slum, numerous buildings by Louis Sullivan 1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Katharine Kuh, in:
that stood there were also demolished in the process.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Architectural Forum, Nov. 1951, p. 104.
Mies first design went as far as to extend across the histori- 3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Henry Thomas Cadbury-
cal pattern of streets, but the option of building over the streets Brown in 1959, in: Architectural Association Journal, July/Aug. 1959,
was initially refused. In a revised design, he integrated the new pp. 3637.
buildings in the existing structure of the city. In the revised plan 4 Ibid.
5 Rem Koolhaas, Miestakes, in: Phyllis Lambert (ed.), Mies in America,
the central square has been retained despite the general simpli-
Montreal, New York 2001, p. 723.
fication of the building volumes, which also stand more freely ar-
ranged in space. The central square is framed by the two largest
buildings, the Library and Administration Building and the Stu-
dent Union and Auditorium Building, neither of which were built.
In his urban design concept, Mies concentrated initially on di-
mensioning a minimum unit that could function as a module out
of which the entire campus could be developed. When we star-
ted, I tried to find out what is a classroom, what is a laboratory
and what is a shop. We came to a system of 24 feet, which equals
7.32metres, a measurement which is used in Switzerland and in
Sweden for school building. So I drew a network of 24 feet by
24 feet all over the campus. The crossing points were the points
where we put columns. Nobody could change that.3 The basic
grid was also extended upwards where each storey equated to a
half-module of 12feet. This three-dimensional grid served only to
provide a degree of orientation.
The original site that encompassed eight blocks of Chicago
lies between two sets of railway lines in a once fashionable living
area and was designed as a park-like greened site with the build
ings distributed in easy fashion over the site like pavilions. For
the design of the outdoor spaces he collaborated with the land-
scape architect Alfred Caldwell. In the earliest drawings one can
already see wide expanses of grass, asymmetrically placed clus-
ters of trees and ivy-clad walls. The architecture and urban design
were conceived of as a unit and were intended to blend with the
vegetation into a new kind of urban landscape.
On the neighbouring site to the east, Mies later designed three
high-rise housing towers for the IIT, a commons building and a cha-
pel. Over the course of 15 years he created 21 buildings for the
IIT, but the overall campus plan remains fragmentary. The cam-
pus was planned as a unit and, if it cannot be a unit, I have to be
satisfied with the torso,4 he declared after other architects had
been commissioned to design further buildings. Although they
partially adhered quite closely to Mies architectural language, the
clearly demarcated space in the centre has never been fully real
ised to the present day.
Over the decades, the neighbouring parts of the city became
ever less dense so that the intended contrast between the tightly-
packed building pattern of the surroundings and the carefully or-
dered placement of buildings in green space and its clearly de-
lineated contour lines became ever less apparent. In 2003, Rem
Koolhaas responded in his design for the IIT McCormick Tribute
Campus Center to the original concept but also most notably to
the changed context. His building increases the density of the
104
Carman Hall and Chapel
Siegel Hall and Crown Hall illinois institute of technology 105
Minerals and Metals Research Building The first building block of the new campus complex of the Illi-
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194143 nois Institute of Technology was a research building for minerals
extended 195658 and metals with the typological characteristics of a factory shed.
The building stands immediately next to the railway lines in a lin
ear zone where all the campus buildings with an industrial char
acter were placed, for example the power station or electricity
substation. The building was originally designed to match the 24-
foot grid that determines the column spacing and volume of the
building, but the bay length of the actual building deviates from
this grid. The buildings length is instead a factor of the number
of bricks. The plinth is articulated as a continuous band laid in
Flemish bond and is placed in front of the structural framework
of the building.
Despite this separation between external skin and supporting
constructions, which Mies termed skin and bones, the axes of the
structural members are legible on the faade: every sixth verti-
cal profile in the windows is slightly wider. The bay interval of the
buildings depth also deviates from the 24-foot grid as the width
of the site and the span of the moving crane were predefined. As
such, the very first building that Mies built for the complex com-
promised his own rules on the arrangement and proportioning of
buildings according to a grid, although this was intended only as
guidance. Mies description of the building sounds like a list of
predefined conditions:
We had 64 feet (19.51 metres) from the railroad to the side-
walk; somebody gave them a traveling crane it was 40 feet (12.19
metres) wide, so we needed 42 feet (12.80 metres) from center of
column to center of column. The rest was laboratories, you know.
Everything was there we needed steel bracing in the wall, the
brick wall. It was a question of the building code. You can only
make an 8-inch (20cm) wall so big, otherwise you have to reinforce
it. So we did that. Then, when everything was finished, the people
from the Minerals and Metals Research Building, the engineers,
they came and said, We need a door here. So I put in a door.1
This description he offered as a rejection of the interpretation
of this minimalist abstract form with its net of black lines and dif-
ferent-sized rectangles as being influenced by Piet Mondrian. He
defended himself vehemently against such speculation, stating
that it failed to appreciate his conviction that the form derives from
the function and the possibilities that the material allows. In his
inaugural address on taking up his position in Chicago, he descri-
bed his programmatic intention: Thus each material has its spe-
cific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it.
This is no less true of steel and concrete. We must remember that
everything depends on how we use a material, not on the mater
ial itself.2 For this building, one of the few to be realised during
the war, he was even permitted to use steel which was otherwise
reserved for armaments production because the building itself
was deemed as being important for the war effort. The building
was not only used to investigate the properties of materials but
also served as an architectural model, demonstrating par excel-
lence the art of constructing with steel.
In this building the steel construction is left unclad. To stif-
fen the brick panels, special hollow profiles were developed that
consisted of two standard U-profiles welded together and incor-
porated almost flush into the wall. At the corners of the building,
wide-flange I-beams are joined to the primary steel structure and
frame the faade. Although Mies was later to use suspended ceil
ing constructions, in this building the structural framework is also
visible on the ceiling. The concrete beams of the roof are left ex-
posed as were the drainpipes that ran inside the building: The ex-
posed beams and girders of the roof, wrote Philip Johnson, are
arranged as carefully as those of a Renaissance beamed ceiling.3
This building has a unidirectional loadbearing structural frame.
Mies referred to the one-way-span structure as a Gothic solu-
tion, writes Phyllis Lambert. As a linear system that could be

East faade
Glazed faade facing west 107
108 Corner details
Transition to the extension
Extension Minerals and Metals Research Building 109
sliced off at any point, the Gothic was more commonly referred 5 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Christian Norberg-Schulz,
to in Mies milieu as a sausage. At the point where the slice oc- in: ditions de lArchitecture dAujourdhui, Luvre de Mies van der Rohe,
Paris 1958, p. 100.
curs, the end wall became a diagram of the structure. The structu-
6 Kenneth Frampton, The Evolution of 20th Century Architecture:
ral frame is expressed directly.4 This can, however, only be seen A Synoptic Account, New York, Vienna 2007, p. 29.
on the end wall. The linear concept of this building is expressed
through the use of two different faade systems: a continuous band
with a hung curtain wall along the long sides and a kind of shell
construction on the narrow sides, as if having bricked in a section
through the building.
From 1956 to 1958, Mies extended the building a further six
bays towards the north. The new addition, however, is a different
building type, and this can be seen on its exterior. The windows
now stretch to the ceiling and lend the building like Mies unre-
alised design from 1923 for a high-rise building made of concrete
a sense of horizontality that contrasts, without any attempt at a
transition, with the existing building.

The rooms on the ground floor along the west faade along with
the gallery above were demolished. The original glazing facing
the railway lines has also been lost. New stairs were inserted,
openings made in the brick facing walls and sills modified. The
wall that abutted the building to the south was also demolished.
The building is used today by the architecture faculty as a stu-
dio space and is in a state of disrepair, as is the later extension.

As is often typical for buildings built as prototypes, damages star-
ted to appear over time that were, however, to influence the con-
cepts of later campus buildings. The continuous band of the ma-
sonry plinth was structurally connected to the steel frame behind,
causing cracks to appear in the brickwork at the column lines due
to the differential movement of the materials. These cracks led
Mies to modify his principle for the faade. Instead of making the
masonry extend as a continuous band around the entire perimeter
of the building, it is interrupted at each structural bay to allow
the structural framework to appear on the outside of the building.
The first building that Mies erected in America proved in re-
trospect to be immensely influential. The Minerals and Metals
Research Building served not only as a model for the other cam-
pus buildings and was to be programmatic for Mies later work.
It also demonstrated a general position that was to characte-
rise the development of post-war architecture and culminated in
Mies declaration that: We would rather than architecture use
the word building.5
Kenneth Frampton has noted that this very economical build
ing was a key precursor to the work of the office of Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill, as well as for European high-tech architecture.
In the buildings of Team4, for example, the early collaboration
between Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, who both studied
in the USA, steel girders are left exposed as a primary expressive
element. The architectonic quality derives from the precision of its
detailing. This celebration of the possibilities of construction was
also to be a great economic success. It is arguable, according
to Frampton, that Miesian typology and methodology played a
role similar to that exercised by the Ecole des Beaux Arts at the
turn of the century, in that it provided a modus operandi that
could be readily acquired while still allowing for a certain varia-
tion in the evolution of contemporary practice.6
1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in: Moiss Puente (ed.), Conversations with
Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2006, pp. 4344.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, inauguration address on 20 Nov. 1938 in
Chicago, in: Werner Blaser, Mies van der Rohe Principles and School,
Basel, Stuttgart 1977, p. 29.
4 Phyllis Lambert (ed.), Mies in America, Montreal, New York 2001, pp. 290291.
110 Minerals and Metals Research Building

Engineering Research Building Due to a shortage of steel during the war, the building was made
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194346 of concrete. The frame construction is left exposed and unclad on
the faade of the building while the panels between them are filled
with brickwork in the lower section and window elements above.
Articulating the separation of loadbearing and non-loadbearing
elements is a slot made in the concrete construction. This slot was
pre-fashioned as a corner indentation of the concrete c olumns dur
ing casting. The meticulous precision of the brick masonry is still
evident today. The large wooden window frames are divided into
16 sections, each of which has the same proportions as the over
all window opening. On visiting the building, the architect Pe-
ter Smithson was reminded of the Verseidag factory building and
wrote: The early buildings in concrete and wood windows (presu-
mably built during the war) are very very Krefeld.1
1 Peter Smithson in a letter to Alison Smithson written on 12 Sep.1958, in:

Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the Art of Inhabitation, London 1994,
p. 9.
Views of the west faade 111

Perlstein Hall The building, which was originally called the Metallurgy and Chem
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194447 ical Engineering Building, has a basic structural module of 24 by
24 feet (7.32 by 7.32 metres). All the concrete-encased steel col
umns correspond to this grid with the exception of those in the
two-storey hall at the northern end of the building. Here the col
umn spacing changes to accommodate the dimensions of a mov
ing crane. The classical system of a square grid is combined with
a Gothic system in which the column placing shifts to fit a more
elongated rectangular arrangement.1 In the centre of the building
is greened courtyard. This building served as a testing ground and
model for a modular floor plan system in which the columns and
walls stood in the same plane.
1 Myron Goldberg recalls that these are the terms that Mies used for these
two principles. Cf. Phillis Lambert (ed.), Mies in America, Montreal, New
York 2001, p. 229.

View from the southwest
North elevation 113
Alumni Memorial Hall
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194546
Ground floor plan

114 Corner detail
Mies design of the corners of this building has made it famous:
it is the origin of the characteristic indented negative corner,
which can be seen on numerous buildings on the IIT campus. The
detail had already been developed in the design for the neigh-
bouring Perlstein Hall, but it is on this building that it was im
plemented for the first time. However, before we examine the
corner in detail, let us first examine the concept of the building
as a whole. Originally called the Navy Building, it was conceived
for the education of marines and contained seminar rooms,
o ffices and an armoury. In 1947 the building was renamed the
Alumni Memorial Hall in honour of the graduates who had fal-
len during the war. 1
The columns of the skeleton frame construction stand on the
grid that orders the entire campus. The floor plan is nine bay
modules long and three bay modules wide and is divided into
three sections, the largest of which is in the centre measuring
5 by 3 bays. This proportion recurs in many buildings of Mies
American oeuvre and corresponds approximately to the Golden
Section. The two sections at either end have proportions of 2:3.
The central section houses a large two-storey hall with galleries
reminiscent of ship decks. The supporting structure of the roof is
visible from below in the form of beams. In accordance with the
clear floor plan, two symmetrically placed entrances are arranged
opposite open staircases. All other non-loadbearing partitions
are arranged freely in space and can be removed as required.
The building served as a model: together with the neigh
bouring buildings, a uniform ensemble arose that laid down a
pattern for the design of the later IIT buildings. As with the earl
ier Minerals and Metals Research Building, the skeleton const-
ruction can be seen on the buildings faade, much in the man-
ner of a traditional half-timbered construction. In the Alumni
Hall, however, one does not see the supporting structure itself
but rather applied elements that express the underlying struc-
ture. This contrasts with the earlier building: while the Alumni
Memorial Hall is also made of steel and employs the same stan-
dardised I-beam profiles, these are encased in a mantle of con-
crete for fire safety reasons.
The steel skeleton framework was first erected on a concrete
slab foundation and then encased in concrete. On the external
skin, the quadratic concrete columns are in turn clad with steel
profiles, creating in its architectonic articulation the impression
of a steel building. Franz Schulze summarises the principle as fol-
lows: That is to say, the real structure of Alumni Memorial Hall,
though suppressed, is expressed: what one knows is there is not
what one sees, but is made evident by what one sees. Mies rea
soning is tortuous, but ever so much his own.2
This layering principle is expressed at the corners of the build
ing. The corner itself is cut out of the building volume. The re-
sult is a vertical channel, an indentation that could be described
as a negative corner. From deeper within this cut-out corner
set back from the front face a second projecting positive cor-
ner made of a steel angle profile can be seen that suggests the
presence of an inner core, hinting at the loadbearing structure
within. This steel-lined indentation does not continue right to the
ground. Instead the bottom courses of masonry form a regular
corner and are covered by a metal plate. There are, of course,
pragmatic reasons for raising the vertical corner element off the
ground to prevent corrosion, for example but the horizontal
base plate can also be read as a plinth on which to display this
architectonic still life. 3 Similar negative corner details were de-
veloped at the time when Mies worked in Peter Behrens office
many years earlier. 4
Mies estate contains endless sketches concerned with the de-
tailing of this building. The metal elements of the faade, which
had been erected as part of the first step, prior to the concrete
encasement of the loadbearing framework, are expressed in the
North faade
Corner detail
East faade 115
Corridor
116 Detail of door
wall as pilasters. This can be seen as a constructional develop-
ment of the Minerals and Metals Research Building.

In the early 1970s, a floor was inserted in the two-storey hall, en-
tailing the loss of two of the galleries. Walls were added and air
conditioning units inserted into window openings. The building
is now somewhat dilapidated and in need of repair. The renova-
tion measures that have been proposed will, however, impact on
the architectural concept, especially if lifts are to be added to the
open staircases.

It was the declared aim of this building to lay down an architec
tonic grammar for the IIT buildings that were to follow. In retro
spect we can see that a decade later Mies did indeed adhere to the
system he formulated here, varying it here and there only slightly.
The neutral architectural language of the buildings intended to
express universally valid architectural principles rather than high-
lighting the special qualities of the specific functions.
Mies was therefore sceptical of Louis Sullivans declaration
that form follows function: When Sullivan argued that form
should follow function, it was more a reaction to what he saw.
Today, I no longer believe that this can really be a binding prin-
ciple. We know now that our buildings last very much longer and
the functions become obsolete. Functions change so rapidly to-
day that it is a buildings flexibility that gives it lasting value. In
my view, flexibility is actually the important and characteristic ele-
ment of our buildings and not the expression of its function.5
With respect to the IIT buildings, he remarked: We had to build
school buildings, and we didnt often know for what they would
be used. So we had to find a system that made it possible to use
these buildings as classrooms, as workshops, or as laboratories.6
1 Cf. Phyllis Lambert (ed.), Mies in America, Montreal, New York 2001,
pp. 303313.
2 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe A Critical Biography, Chicago, Lon-
don 1985, p. 226.
3 Wolfgang Kemp, Ein Werkbeispiel: Eine Ecke von Mies van der Rohe,
in: Architektur analysieren Eine Einfhrung in acht Kapiteln, Munich 2009,
pp. 6568.
4 See the corners of the German Embassy in St. Petersburg and of the ent-
rance portal to the Frankfurt Gasworks, in: Carsten Krohn, Peter Behrens.
Architecture, Weimar 2013, p. 100 and p.128.
5 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with the Bayerischen Rund-
funk, in: Der Architekt, vol. 10, 1966, p. 324 (translation JR).
Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2006, p. 34.
Alumni Memorial Hall 117

Wishnick Hall The IIT Chemistry Building was designed together with the build
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194546 ings around it. The buildings employ the same faade design and
the corner detail is identical to the indented negative corner of
the Alumni Memorial Hall. The staircases likewise follow the model
of those in the Alumni Memorial Hall with brick masonry corners
placed at an angle of 45 degrees, emphasising the direction of
movement on the stair landings. Peter Behrens employed a similar
device in yellow brickwork for the AEG High Tension Factory in
Berlin.1 The rectangular floor plan of the buildings incorporates
the stairs and an auditorium within its envelope. This arrangement
only came about through a process of simplification: in the first
campus plan, in which the pair of buildings is already marked, the
auditoria were shown as separate building volumes and the stairs
were also located outside the structural plan.
From 2006 to 2008, the building underwent comprehensive
restoration. The steel construction was cleaned and the sliding
windows replaced. While the reconstructed aluminium window
frames closely resemble the originals, the interior spaces have
been modified more significantly: the height of the rooms has
changed to accommodate the installation of a modern central air
conditioning system.
1 Cf. Carsten Krohn, Peter Behrens. Architecture, Weimar 2013, p. 70.

West faade
Staircase 119
Central Vault In contrast to the other IIT buildings that expose their steel and
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 1946 concrete construction, using brick only as an infill material for the
non-loadbearing panels in the structure, this electricity substa-
tion is a soild brick construction. The masonry is constructed as a
single leaf and bears a thin concrete slab that has been fashioned
as a downstand at its edges and presents itself as a deep archi
trave that rests on the walls. The smaller of the two rooms con-
tained the switching station, the larger the transformers. The out-
door area between this building and the neighbouring Minerals
and Metals Research Building was originally closed off with a wall
that united both buildings into a continuous band.
Floor plan
120 Detail of the north-facing faade
Institute of Gas Technology Building Originally planned as a steel construction with outlying steel mem-
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194750 bers, the building was eventually built using a more economical
concrete construction. The structural framework is exposed on the
external surface of the building while the panels of the skeleton
construction are filled with masonry. The brick panels are capped
with a concrete strip into which the windows are anchored. The
external stair leading to the main entrance is made with natural
stone, a higher-quality and more haptic material than the facing
concrete but of a similar colour so that the use of materials creates
a homogenous impression. The side stair at the rear of the build
ing is, however, made of concrete.
North faade
Stairs to the entrance 121
Association of American Railroads Research Laboratory Mies designed a group of buildings on the IIT Campus for the As-
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA,194850 sociation of American Railroads that form a part of the IIT com-
plex and continue the architectural language of the preceding IIT
buildings. The first of these buildings was a two-storey research
and administration building which is fitted precisely into the ur-
ban grid. The building adheres to the architectonic principle of the
campus buildings, with one slight variation in its detailed execu-
tion: the corners of the building follow the principle used for the
Alumni Memorial Hall, except that the masonry plinth features in-
dented corners. A music college uses the building today.
Ground floor plan

Corner detail on the exterior
122 Corner detail in the interior
Boiler Plant The boiler plant for IIT was to replace an older facility. Mies
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194850 design ed the building around an existing boiler and also planned
its extension. The original, almost square plan of the building was
later extended according to his plan.1 Its location alongside the
railway lines was chosen so that fuel could be delivered directly to
the building. The architectural critic Charles Jencks later described
the building as a sacred building in a critical passage in which he
interpreted the building as a cathedral with a freestanding campa-
nile, while the campus chapel, also designed by Mies, looked to
him ironically like a boiler plant.2 The interior of the power plant
remains unchanged to the present day and presents visitors with
a spatial experience: the platforms arranged at different levels are
organised according to the Raumplan principle. Each of the pla-
teaus affords views across to the other levels.
1 In 1964 the architects Sargent & Lundy extended Mies plan of the build
ing a further six bays to the north. The building was extended again at a
later date.
2 Cf. Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, London
1977, p. 14.
Upper floor plan View from the southeast

Ground floor plan East faade 123
Chapel We will make just a box,1 is how Mies described the only sac-
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 194952 red building he designed: the Robert F. Carr Memorial Chapel of
Saint Savior. The building is a monolithic brick construction with a
floor plan that follows the proportions of the Golden Section. The
orientation of the church does not follow the convention: instead
one enters from the east with the altar in the west. The east and
west faades are, however, identical with the exception of the glaz
ing which is transparent at one end and sandblasted at the other.
Mies said about the chapel that it is of noble character, construc-
ted of good materials, and has beautiful proportions, and further
that, it is simple. But in its simplicity it is not primitive, but no-
ble, and in its smallness it is great in fact, monumental.2 The
altar is made of a solid block of Roman travertine. An alternative
suggestion to clad the altar was brushed aside by Mies with the
words: An altar, in my opinion, is a rock.3 The chapel contains
ancillary spaces, but these are placed behind a concrete block
wall which is concealed by a silk curtain. The curtain appears to
hang freely in space, in a manner similar to the Samt und Seide
Caf (Velvet and Silk Caf), as all four walls of the church can be
seen in the interior and the entire width of the ceiling is visible.
Although experienced as a single large space, the interior is div
ided into a sequence of spaces. Different kinds of spatial transi-
tions are articulated: a step in the terrazzo floor, a stainless steel
railing, a plinth around the altar, and a curtain. The building was
renovated in 200809.
Brown 1959, in: Architectural Association Journal, July/Aug. 1959, p. 37.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, A Chapel Illinois Institute of Technology,
in: Arts and Architecture, vol. 1, 1953, pp. 1819.
3 Cf. note 1.
Floor plan
View from the northwest
124 Corner detail
West faade
Altar 125
Test Cell Although the building is an unassuming functional building,1 it is
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195052 nevertheless important as an urban ensemble. Designed together
destroyed with a wall to create a single ensemble, it marks the entrance situ-
ation to the campus. The freestanding wall, which was an impor-
tant element of Mies courtyard houses, here too serves as an inte-
gral part of the architecture. As the windows and doors open onto
the courtyard, one sees only an abstract volume dimensioned ac-
cording to the structural grid of the complex. This cell is presen-
ted as a basic three-dimensional urban module. I am convinced
that a campus must have a uniform design,2 remarked Mies as
changes started to be made to his urban concept. The building
was demolished in 2009.
1 While there is much to be found about the building on the internet, a brick-
clad concrete construction, in particular in the articles by Edward Lifson, all
we know about its use is that it was supposed to have been used during the
Cold War for testing weapons.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Katharine Kuh in 1964, in:
Elevation
126 Floor plan with Boiler Plant
Mechanics Research Building The building is reduced to just a few elements, and replicates the
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195052 system of the neighbouring Institute of Gas Technology in a sim-
plified form. The articulated plinth has been omitted, as has the
concrete coping above the masonry infill panels. In this building,
the masonry infill is faced with a steel plate that forms the base of
the ribbon windows. The brick bond used for the masonry is also
simplified. The internal arrangement of the building has since been
changed. The building was later extended northwards according
to the original plans but by other architects.
East faade 127

Crown Hall
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195056
Floor plan of the hall

128 Lower floor plan
Main entrance
View from the southwest 129
This building differs from all other buildings on the IIT Campus.
Made of steel and glass, the hall housing the architecture depart-
ment is completely open and radically reduced to its architectural
structure conveying a sublime sense of extreme clarity. Measuring
220 by 120 feet (67.01 by 36.58 metres), it also deviates from the
24 by 24 foot grid applied to the rest of the campus. The primary
construction consists of only eight columns spaced at intervals
of 120 by 60 feet (33.50 by 18.29 metres) that support four deep
steel plate girders from which the roof plane is suspended. For
the architects building I went away from the grid, recounts Mies.
I think the architects building is the most complete and the most
refined building and the most simple building. In the other build
ings there is more a practical order on a more economical level
and in the architects building it is more spiritual order.1
This spiritual order relates directly to the purpose of the
building, as it is here that Mies was to teach. In his inaugural
address as Director of Architecture at Chicago he had already
outlined the aims of his teaching in philosophical terms. An edu-
cation in the building art a term he preferred to architecture
must lead us from irresponsible opinion to responsible insight,
and to lead us from chance and arbitrariness to the clear law
fulness of a spiritual order.2 This is what the building had to
demonstrate. It embodies an attitude that sought to reflect the
authoritative architectural position of the time.
The significance of the building is already evident in the cere
mony of its approach, which is not unlike that of a sacred build
ing. One ascends a set of travertine steps to reach a cantilevered
platform that floats like a landing in front of the building. Before
even entering the building one can already see the expanse of
the column-free interior of the hall through the glazed frontage.
The only walls in the interior are placed like freestanding furni-
ture in the space and serve only to define different spatial z ones:
student workplaces on each side and an exhibition area in the
middle. This universal space initially also contained an office area
and library. I lived there and worked there. It was beautiful,
said Mies. I like to work in this building. There is never any dis-
turbance in the acoustics, [except] when the professor becomes
emotional. He should not do that. Otherwise we have no dis
turbances. We work in groups together. 3
The uncompromising openness of the hall was only made
possible by the inclusion of a more conventional basement level
reached by stairs that descend to the rooms below. Here the spa-
tial arrangement is more profane with enclosed rooms, doors, ac-
cess corridors and toilets, along with a more conventional choice
of materials, such as concrete block partitioning walls. This floor
is illuminated by ribbon windows of translucent glazing around
its perimeter and originally housed the design department.
This band of sandblasted glass is also continued in the upper
hall. Only the upper section of the glass walls was transparent,
along with the glazing in the entrance area, to give the work-
places a more sheltered character. From within one had views of
the treetops and the sky. Mies had previously experimented with
the effect of translucent glass in his design for a Glass Room in
1927 and recorded that: Walls of opaque glass give the rooms
a wonderfully mild but bright and even illumination [and] in the
evening [represent] a powerful body of light. 4
The panes of glass are 10 or 5 feet wide (3.05 or 1.52 met-
res) and match the module of the construction grid and the grid
of metal channels in the terrazzo floor at intervals of 5 by 2 feet
(1.52 by 0.76 metres). The flooring is paved with a combination
of Virginia Black and Tennessee Gray marble. The freestand
ing partitions are made of Appalachian White Oak treated with
Pratt and Lambert Special Oak Stain, and the steel construction
is painted Mies usual matt black using Superior Graphite 30, a
standard product developed by the Detroit Graphite Company
for painting bridges around the world.
East faade
Entrance stairs
130 Hall
Hall
Detail of the stairs Crown Hall 131
With Crown Hall, Mies demonstrated a typological concept
for an open-plan universal space. Mies had built smaller col
umn-free constructions in the past, for example the sports hall
in Potsdam or the electricity pavilion in Barcelona, but here the
construction is the dominant element. The supporting structure
of Crown Hall with its large steel plate girders arranged above
the roof plane is plainly visible and immediately legible even for
laypeople. In the interior, by contrast, the construction is not
visible. The suspended ceiling even appears to float, especially
when looking towards the light. It extends right up to the peri-
meter glazing and appears to do so in a continuous movement.
The tectonic handling of the interior and the exterior is there-
fore quite different. The rhythmic segmentation produced by the
deep I-beams that characterises the buildings exterior appear
ance is not apparent from within.
The strict symmetrical composition of the building and the
placement of the stairs are reminiscent of Schinkels Altes Mu-
seum in Berlin, but the two buildings differ in their articulation
of the central space. In Berlin, the central space is focussed and
converges on a single point crowned by a dome, while the cen-
tral zone of Crown Hall is characterised by a sense of emptiness
that animates one to pass through it. Colin Rowe has written of
this phenomenon that the flat slab of the roof induces a certain
outward pull; and, for this reason, in spite of the centralizing ac-
tivity of the entrance vestibule, the space still remains, though
in very much simplified form, the rotary, peripheric organisation
of the twenties, rather than the predominantly centralized com-
position of the true Palladian or classical plan.5
Although Mies originally foresaw the installation of an air
conditioning system, the building was initially only mechanically
ventilated, with the exhaust vents incorporated in the suspended
ceiling. An underfloor heating was installed beneath the terrazzo
floor and solar gain was regulated using blinds. A former stu-
dent, Peter Beltemachi, recalls that Hilberseimer used to walk
around and adjust them all day long. Hilberseimer and Mies de-
finitely knew about the light control, because when they adjus-
ted the blinds, a lot of it was to get some light up on to the ceil
ing to get it out onto the tables. We talk about it today, but it
was well known in those days. Light control just by adjusting the
Venetian blinds was part of the original use of the blinds. Hilber-
seimer ran this place with an iron fist. No feet on the furniture.
You couldnt play music. You couldnt smoke. It was like schools
used to be. People would still wear neckties to class, Hilbersei-
mer, when he died in 1967, thats when the Venetian blind busi-
ness went to hell.6 The next phase of renovations will include the
installation of a computerised system for regulating the blinds.

During renovation works undertaken by Skidmore, Owings and
Merrill in the 1970s, the wall panels in the hall were rearranged
and the glazing renewed. Later changes to the building codes re-
quired the installation of thicker glass panes and an air condition
ing system was installed requiring changes to the roof. Towards
the end of the 1980s the Institute of Design vacated the lower
floor, and conversion works were undertaken to make the entire
building usable for the architecture school. The most extensive
renovation works were undertaken in 2005 by the architecture of-
fice Krueck and Sexton Architects in conjunction with the conser-
vation expert Gunny Harboe. As part of these works, the func-
tionality of the vents at the base of the panels of the perimeter
glazing was restored.7

Crown Hall is still used for the function for which it was originally
intended. The maximum flexibility afforded by the interior has pro-
ven its worth, accommodating a variety of different uses, including
Hall
Lower floor
132 Toilets
an exhibition of Picassos works and concert by Duke Ellington
and his orchestra. But what was Mies alluding to when he said the
building expressed the clear lawfulness of a spiritual order? For
Mies, this refers to Saint Augustines declaration that there is no
ordered thing which is not beautiful, a sentence that he had un-
derlined in his own copy.8 Saint Augustine differentiated between
those qualities that can be perceived with the senses and the over
arching immutable laws such as symmetry, number and unit. He
wrote: We must indeed inquire what is the cause of our being dis-
satisfied if two windows are placed not one above the other but
side by side, and one of them is greater or less than the other, for
they ought to have been equal; while if they are placed one di-
rectly above the other, even though they are unlike, the inequality
does not offend us in the same way. [] Thus if I ask an architect
why, having constructed one arch, he builds another equal to it on
the other side, he will reply, I believe, that it is in order that equal
parts of a building may correspond to equal parts.9
In contrast to the other IIT buildings, the architectonic const-
ruction of Crown Hall is not the product of a schedule of required
spaces. The individual elements are joined together solely as a
product of the logic and order of the building itself. Mies belie-
ved in the continuity of this order, citing that Order m eans ac-
cording to St. Augustine the disposition of equal and unequal
things, attributing to each its place. 10
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Inaugural address as Director of Architecture,
1938, in: Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the
Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 316.
Brown in: Architectural Association Journal, July/Aug. 1959, p. 38.
4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Das Kunstblatt, no. 3, 1930, pp. 111113.
English language translation in Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies
van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 305.
5 Colin Rowe, Neo-Classicism and Modern Architecture II (written in
195657 but first published in 1973), in: The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa
and Other Essays, Cambridge, Mass. 1987, p. 149.
6 Peter Beltemachi in: lynnbecker.com/repeat/mies/crowndeclinerebirth.htm
7 Cf. Elizabeth Olson, S.R. Crown Hall in: docomomo-us.org/register/
fiche/sr_crown_hall
8 Cf. Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the
Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 317. (St. Augustine: For there is
no ordered thing which is not beautiful, De vera religione, XLI 77.)
9 St. Augustine, De vera religione (On the True Religion), XXX 5455 and
XXXII 59.
10 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Introduction in: Ludwig Hilberseimer, The
New City, Chicago 1944. Reproduced in: Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word
Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p. 323.
Detail Crown Hall 133

IIT Halls of Residence The three apartment towers, Carman Hall, Bailey Hall and Cunning
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195155 ham Hall, are planned as an ensemble that enclose an open out-
door area. The reinforced concrete structure shares the same
construction and detailing as the Promontory Apartments: the
structural framework becomes progressively more slender towards
the top and the vertical members step back every few floors. The
columns are articulated differently according to the load they bear
and internally they are cross-shaped. The metal windows are in-
serted directly into the external concrete columns, and by todays
standards do not offer sufficient thermal insulation or noise pro-
tection. In advance of more comprehensive renovation works,
the windows of the uppermost storeys of Bailey Hall have already
been replaced, although these alter the character of the building
significantly.
Upper floor plan of Carman Hall

Ground floor plan of Carman Hall
134 Corner detail
Bailey Hall
Bailey Hall and Cunningham Hall 135
Association of American Railroads Mechanical Laboratory The building was designed to be large enough for railway wagons
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195253 to drive into and follows the same structural principle as the Min
erals and Metals Research Building. Here too, the end wall re-
veals the different configurations of storeys in the sectional arran-
gement of the building, with a multi-storey section to the east of
the building and a large hall that extends the entire height of the
building. As is typical for frame constructions, the brick panels are
non-loadbearing. Although the building is an industrial building,
Mies has detailed the staircases with the same precision as those
in the prestigious Arts Club or the later Crown Hall building. Next
to the hall, which is now used by Chicago Transit Authority, a small
building was erected to house a compressor.
Ground floor plan

North faade
136 Detail of the stairs
Commons Building The refectory building is a large hall-like structure made of steel.
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA,195254 As a single-storey building, the construction needed no fire-pro-
tective sheathing. The basic structural framework is completed
with the bare minimum of insertions: the window frames are at-
tached directly to the wide-flange I-beams of the columns while
the panels between them have either masonry infill or glazing. In-
side, the kitchen and serving area is placed as a freestanding core
in the space. Alongside the main dining hall, there are units for
a bookshop, post office, doctors surgery and a grocery. In 2003,
the building was extended with the McCormick Tribute Campus
Center designed by Rem Koolhaas. Despite the fact that the con-
text has become more crowded, the original open character of
the hall still remains.
Detail
Exterior view
Interior view 137
Electrical Engineering and Physics Building Constructed out of reinforced concrete, the building was designed
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195456 for the Institute of Gas Technology. The open panels in the skele-
ton frame construction have a masonry infill laid in stretcher bond.
This brick bond, which is one brick thick, emphasises the non-load
bearing character of the infill panel, which is arranged flush with
the outer face of the loadbearing structure. A shadow line marks
the division between the loadbearing and the non-loadbearing
elements. The building has no faade in the sense of an applied
frontage, and a front or back has not been articulated: the structure
is made visible in the same way on all sides of the building. The
building stands exactly within the urban grid, with a width of three
modules and a length of nine. The articulation of the structural
framework as a visible net of lines can be seen as a diagram that
not only describes the internal structure of the building but also
the structure of the overall constellation of the surroundings. Un-
til the end of the 1970s, the building contained the first industrial
nuclear reactor. The building has since been extended and most
of the larger glazing panels have been replaced with small panes.
Faade
138 Corner of the building
Association of American Railroads Engineering Laboratory The large hall echoes that of the neighbouring Mechanical Labora
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA 195557 tory, except that this building is one bay wider, making it exactly
twice as long as it is wide. Here too, the hall is an exposed steel
construction with an entrance large enough to accommodate rail-
ways wagons, and here too a small building has been built along-
side it. The positions of the two halls with respect to one another
are a product of the routing of the railway track. The extensive
glazing lies in the same plane as the wall, lending the building an
abstract, almost block-like appearance. The clarity of the buildings
original volume has since been compromised by the addition of
an extension on the north side. The building is used today by the
Chicago Transit Authority.
Ground floor plan

View from the campus
Entrance 139
Siegel Hall Together with the neighbouring Wishnick Hall, the Electrical En-
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA, 195558 gineering and Physics Building forms a gateway, as shown in the
site plan on page 102.1 The two almost identical buildings stand
next to one another, adjoining an open space in the centre of the
campus. While the plans vary slightly, the basic spatial configu-
ration is the same with an auditorium arranged internally in the
centre of the plan. Although built almost a decade after Wishnick
Hall, the design is almost unchanged, demonstrating Mies in-
tended continuity of architectural language. The arrangement of
a pair of essentially identical building volumes emphasises the ur-
ban configuration. Today, the building stands more isolated than
was originally planned.
1 This gateway situation was part of the original campus plan from 1939
but had not been implemented. Cf. Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe,
New York 1947.

South faade
Corner of the building 141
Farnsworth House The building stands on a park-like site directly adjoining a river,
Plano, Illinois, USA, 194551 situated in a rural location in the midst of a hilly and wooded land-
scape. Even from a distance, the house exudes an air of crystal-
line clarity and purity. Mies designed it as a weekend house for a
female doctor. Although a location on higher ground further away
from the river was also possible, Mies explained: We discussed
the advantages and disadvantages of both places and I propo-
sed to Dr. Farnsworth to build close to the river where there were
beautiful old trees. She was afraid that the river would go over the
bank, but I still stuck to this place because I thought that [the pro-
blems could] be overcome in one way or the other.1
Mies attempted to obtain official records of historical high
water levels but was informed that these did not exist and that
he should ask old settlers in the region. Mies response was to
conceive of a building on the floodplain, raised off the ground
on stilts so that the floor level was above the highest known high
water level. Describing its structure, he explained that, the floor
and roof is not directly supported but is suspended, adding that
he viewed this as a normal way of doing it under the circum-
stances.2 Later he would emphasise that he told the client he
would only take on the project under the condition of having free
hand in its design. She asked me if I had ideas about it and af-
ter looking around in the different directions for the views pos-
sible I said: If I would be to build here for myself I think I would
build in glass because all the views are so beautiful that it is hard
to decide which view should be preferred. 3
The house was positioned just north of a mature maple tree
so that the tree shades the house from the midday sun in summer.
Despite the faades being open in all directions, the views are
carefully framed. The painted white steel construction acts like
the passe-partout of a picture frame. I was in the house from
morning to evening. I did not know how colourful nature really
was. But you have to be careful in the inside to use neutral co-
lours, because you have the colours outside. These absolutely
change. 4 Mies chose Roman travertine paving for the floor,
pure silk shantung for the curtains and a light-coloured prima-
vera veneer for cladding the inner core and its ancillary spaces.
The freestanding inner core is conceived as a piece of furni
ture placed in the space with walls that do not extend to the
ceiling. The doors mimic the appearance of the cupboard doors
so that there is no visible indication of the bathrooms contained
within.
The construction of the building is designed to look excep-
tionally simple. The structure appears to consist of just two ele-
ments: vertical wide-flange I-beams inserted as columns di-
rectly into the ground and horizontal planes suspended between
them. Although the roof and floor slabs are individual compo-
site constructions made of several different elements, they pre-
sent themselves as a single homogenous slab. The complexities
of the technical installations are hidden away. The roof slab di-
rects water to a downpipe that passes through the centre of the
building, and the floor slab contains coils for underfloor heating.
The m eans of connection between the loadbearing elements are
likewise concealed.
A U-shaped structural channel runs around the perimeter of
the floor and roof slabs and is plug-welded to the vertical col
umns. The window frames, made of an assembly of precision-cut
rectangular steel bar elements, are likewise invisibly plug-weld
ed to the structural channels and vertical supports. The corner
profiles of the window glazing are fillet-welded, while the weld
seam itself is covered by end pieces or else laboriously sanded
off. The only outwardly visible indications of mountings are the
screws in the glazing stops for installing and fixing the panes of
glass. From an engineering perspective, this is not a particularly
corrosion-resistant construction, requiring considerable mainten
ance to protect against corrosion. Less than half the material
142 Floor plan

Exterior views 143
Interior
144 Kitchen
Veranda
View of the river Farnsw o rth Ho u se 145
would have been required had conventional hollow window pro- than outside. More is asked for from nature, because it becomes
files been used, but for Mies the clean delineation of the solid a part of a larger whole. 7
steel bar elements was extremely important. The individual profil
e s are carefully put together with the precision of a stonemason. 1 Ludwig Mies von der Rohe cited in: Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst,
Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, Chicago, London 2012, p. 251.
2 Ibid., p. 258.
Later alterations to the building 3 Ibid., p. 250.
The wooden fittings in the interior have been repeatedly lost and 4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Graeme Shankland in:
rebuilt as a result of recurring flooding. In the most recent re- The Listener, 15 Oct. 1959, p. 621.
pairs, a clothing wardrobe made of teak, required by the client 5 Peter Eisenman, The Umbrella Diagram, in: Ten Canonical Buildings
19502000, New York 2008, pp. 5070.
but never intended by Mies, was not reinstated. Mies was un
6 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Dirk Lohan, Manuscript
able to persuade the client to use the inner block as a cupboard. MoMA (translation JR).
Ironically the loss of this original fitting restored the uninterrup- 7 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Christian Norberg-Schulz,
ted view along the entire length of the house, as the architect had in: ditions de lArchitecture dAujourdhui, Luvre de Mies van der Rohe,
originally p
lanned it. A further element that was installed at the Paris 1958, p. 100.
behest of the c lient, and then later removed, was a fly screen that
ran around the perimeter of the deck. In place of a fireplace on
the floor, Dirk Lohan later designed a raised hearth. Air conditio-
ning has since also been installed. The building of a new bridge
over the river within sight of the house also led to the rerouting of
a road, bringing traffic closer to the house.

The design of the house is so reductive that it reads almost as a
diagram. It is as if all but what is truly necessary has been eradica-
ted, leaving just the structure of the building standing. Although
it could have been constructed with much less material, the house
still appears to be exceptionally light. By lifting the horizontal pla-
nes off the ground, the suspended slabs appear almost to float.
This is a feeling one also senses physically. Visitors reach the decks
via sets of open stairs, and the lack of a railing lends them the
sense of being an extension of the topography.
Peter Eisenman has remarked that despite their identical di-
mensions, the floor slab and roof slab should be read differently
in conceptual terms, due to the presence of the lower deck. The
travertine paving of the floor slab is perceived as a plinth while
the roof slab covers the space like an umbrella.5 Eisenman has
described Farnsworth House as an umbrella diagram due to the
arrangement of the columns outside the plan. He contrasts this
with Le Corbusiers Maison Dom-Ino, also a diagrammatic con-
cept, which employs a sandwich principle of two identical slabs
above each other. Le Corbusiers columns are placed within the
plan, emphasising the horizontal continuity of space, while Mies
columns sit outside and frame the building.
At the same time, Mies design does all it can to counteract
the theme of framing. The columns, which end just below the ea-
ves coping, are not only placed outside of the building but also
positioned away from its corners. Philip Johnsons Glass House,
built in 1949, contrasts with this: Johnsons columns rise to meet
with the roof and, more significantly, are placed at the corners,
emphasising the cubic geometry of the building but at the same
time obscuring its tectonic articulation. Mies distanced himself
from the work of his colleague: He kept on coming here, nos
ing through all the details and copying them. The mistakes he
made in his details are because he didnt elaborate them, choos
ing instead to nose around. 6
Despite the formal rigour and elementary reduction of the
house, it is by no means schematic. Not only are the levels ar-
ranged asymmetrically to one another, but the entrance to the
interior is also shifted slightly to the south of the central axis.
Minimalism here is not an end in itself, but a means by which
to perceive the context more intensively. This has a spiritual di-
mension, as Mies describes: Nature should also live its own life,
we should not destroy it with the colors of our houses and inter
iors. But we should try to bring nature, houses and human be-
ings together in a higher unity. When you see nature through the
glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it gets a deeper meaning
146 Detail
View of the entrance Farnswo rt h Ho u se 147
Promontory Apartments Mies first realised design for a high-rise building was for a lake-
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 194649 side location and features large windows that afford a panoramic
view over Lake Michigan. The lakefront at this point takes the form
of a park-like landscape enabling Mies to realise the quintessen-
tially modernist vision of a high-rise tower in a park. The building
does not, however, stand alone but completes the existing urban
block, resulting in a twin-T-shaped floor plan. This typological ar-
rangement occupies the full width of the site, and because adja-
cent buildings can be built to the north and south of the build
ing, these end walls have no windows. On the east side, which
faces the lake, the glazing extends across the entire frontage of
the building and up to the ceiling of the apartments.
The building is divided into three sections: the ground floor
with its glazed entrance lobby is set back from the main front
age of the shaft of the 20-storey building, as is the roof zone.
Crowning the building are two protruding volumes that house
technical installations, under which is the so-called Solarium, a
large collectively used room with a glazed front facing the lake.
From the lake, the building is perceived as a large rectangular
slab raised off the ground by a series of columns, but to the rear
on the westward side the building has projecting sections that
form a more conventional courtyard elevation.
Each of the T-shaped halves of the building functions indepen-
dently with their own people and goods lifts and own fire escape
stairs. Each apartment has two means of access: the main ent-
rance and a second entrance providing direct access to the kit-
chen. On entering the lakeside apartments, a cupboard serves
as a room divider, obscuring a direct view into the living room.
Passing through a narrow opening, the view widens dramati-
cally, opening onto the central living area, which leads seam-
lessly on into the dining area. The floor plans avoid the use of
long corridors.
The architectonic articulation of the construction is exceptiona l.
The building is a concrete frame construction with an exposed
structural skeleton. Brick infill is used to close off the open
p anels between the reinforced concrete columns. The vertical
elements of the exposed structure are set back slightly every
five storeys so that the vertical lines of the columns appear to
grow more slender towards the top. This tectonic articulation
reflects not only the reduced load requirements of the upper
storeys but also represents an exemplary Miesian approach to
the design of a high-rise building made of concrete, as his later
work went on to show.
The construction gives the building its character. By showing
the structural system on the surface of the building, it aims to
express the honesty and simplicity of its construction. The brick
infill masonry is laid in stretcher bond, which demonstrates the
non-loadbearing nature of the brick panels. The facing brickwork
which is of the same colour as those of the IIT buildings is a
simple single-leaf stretch of wall, while the inner leaf and the in-
ternal dividing walls are made of large-format concrete blocks.
The building has been detailed with the utmost precision, which
is particularly evident in the entrance lobby and the good con-
dition of the aluminium window profiles.

As the building has no air-conditioning, some residents started
to insert openings in the brickwork panels beneath the windows.
By the mid 1960s, Mies was then asked to propose a coordinated
positioning plan for the wall-mounted air-conditioning units. Al
though his plan was gradually put into effect, further openings
have since been made that deviate from the regular pattern of
the units. Mies later also produced a plan for the remodelling of
the ground floor.1 In the 1990s, the ground floor area was chan-
ged once again in the course of renovation works on the building.
Upper floor plan

East faade 149
Even as the building was still being completed, Mies was already
working with the same client, Herbert Greenwald, on another pro-
ject for two glass-clad high-rise buildings on Lake Shore Drive. In
direct comparison, the Promontory Apartments seem much more
conventional. Publications from the time initially showed only pho-
tos of the lakeside elevation, which make it look like a freestand
ing slab building. Even though steel was to become Mies pre
ferred building material, this building was nevertheless crucial for
the later development of his work. The device of successively step-
ping back an exposed concrete construction towards the top of
the building is used frequently in his later buildings.
A further pioneering aspect of the building was the housing
cooperative model: In a co-op, apartments are offered as sha-
res in a cooperation that owns and operates the building. Tech-
nically, the shareholder leases a unit from the building coopera-
tion.2 The architect, construction firm and the investor all gained
valuable knowledge in high-rise construction from undertaking
this project, and this building marked the beginning of further
cooperation to come.
1 Cf. Anthony P. Amarose, Pao-Chi Chang and Alfred Swenson, National

Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Promontory Apartments,
historic monument report, Chicago 1996, p. 4: Another change involved
the remodeling of the ground floor by creating two mail rooms, one on
each side, by taking space from the original bicycle rooms, and converting
the north bicycle room into a receiving room. The existing mailboxes in the
entrance vestibules would be relocated to the mail rooms. These changes
to the lobby were executed circa 1965, largely as shown on the Mies draw
ing. (gis.hpa.state.il.us/pdfs/201012.pdf)
2 Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical
Biography, Chicago, London 2012, p. 279.
View from within looking east

Detail of the faade
150 Glazing detail
Corner detail Pr o m o n tory A part ment s 151
Algonquin Apartments The six towers of the Algonquin Apartments are the evolution of
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 194850 an initial plan by Mies. His original design was, however, never
executed.1 Together with the architecture firm Pace Associates,
Mies office developed a set of freestanding towers based on a
concrete frame relying on the same technique used for the Prom
ontory Apartments nearby. Here too the columns are set back
every few storeys so that the structural framework appears to
grow progressively more slender towards the top. However, after
the project developer Herbert Greenwald and Mies began to con-
centrate on another site on Lake Shore Drive, Charles Genther,
a pupil of Mies, assumed a leading role in the planning of the
Algonquin project with his office Pace Associates. A site plan that
shows the six towers eventually built lists both Pace and Mies as
the authors of the project.
1 A history of the development of the plan is given in: Franz Schulze (ed.),
The Mies van der Rohe Archive, vol. 14, New York, London 1992, p. 8,
and: Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical
Biography, Chicago 2012, pp. 383385.
Site plan
152 View from the northwest
Arts Club of Chicago The project is a conversion of an existing building.1 For Mies, this
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 194851 was a rare situation, but as a member of the club he offered his
services free of charge. He created a glazed lobby with a white-
painted steel stair that stands freely like a sculpture in the space.
The treads, carpeted in black, lead to the gallery spaces above.
Mies designed this lobby in the utmost detail, also selecting the
furniture. In the mid-1990s, however, the building was demolished,
although the stair itself was able to be saved and was subsequently
re-installed in another building. The sculptural object was, how
ever, originally conceived as part of a sequence of spaces designed
by Mies. As with the McCormick House, only the steel construction
of the original substance was transferred to a new location and
what remains is a fragment in a changed context.
1 Cf. Franz Schulze (ed.), The Mies van der Rohe Archive, vol. 14, New
York, London 1992, p. 224225.
Stairs 153
860880 Lake Shore Drive
Ground floor plan

154 Upper floor plan
View from the northeast 155
The glazed towers on the shores of Lake Michigan give the im-
pression of having been stripped in an act of radical minimalism of
all that is unnecessary to leave just the shell of the towers stand
ing. All one sees of their architecture is the skeleton framework of
their structure. The coalescence of architecture and construction
makes it possible to glaze the entire frontage of the two towers,
providing the best possible illumination of the rooms within and
affording their inhabitants the best possible views. This drive for
maximum efficiency can also be seen in the use of an especially
economical construction method for the extremely expensive plot.
With the building of the towers Mies realised a vision that
he first formulated in the early 1920s in his first published text:
Only skyscrapers under construction reveal the bold constructive
thoughts, and then the impression of the high-reaching steel skel
etons is overpowering. With the raising of the walls, this impres-
sion is completely destroyed; the constructive thought, the ne-
cessary basis for artistic form-giving is annihilated. [] The novel
constructive principle of these buildings comes clearly into view if
one employs glass for the no longer load-bearing exterior walls. 1
The apartments in the towers were originally conceived as
being fully open with the bathroom as the only enclosed room.
However, the floor plans that were actually built were for apart-
ments with several rooms: eight small apartments per floor in the
northern tower and four larger apartments per floor in the south
ern tower. A zone of service rooms was arranged around the fixed
access core, allowing the division of the living rooms to be v aried
with lightweight partitioning walls as required. The larger apart-
ments even had a second tradesmens entrance. We use the
principle of flexibility, described Mies. We cannot help but fix
the bathrooms and the kitchens in one place, but otherwise it is
quite flexible, we can take the walls out or put more walls in.2
The possibility of alteration is therefore built in.
The two towers are identical volumes placed at 90 to each
other. Each of them is raised off the ground and the two are con-
nected at ground level. The two towers are placed on a travertine
plateau so that they are perceived as a single entity, despite the
fact that their appearance changes with the direction of view. As
one moves around the ensemble, the constellation changes with
each step: at one point one sees two slender towers, from another
direction the two faades blend to form a continuous texture.
The vertical wide-flange I-beam profiles attached to the exter
ior of the faade are important elements because they cast sha-
dows, lending the towers a sense of relief and delineation. This
effect is heightened as the position of the sun changes. Much like
the lesenes of a medieval church, the applied steel profiles struc-
ture the walls. As an expression of the verticality of the load dis-
sipation, they also serve a tectonic function. Seen from the side,
the blinker quality3 of the row of I-beams makes the wall seem
monolithic, emphasising the abstract physical quality of the rect
angular blocks. At the same time the towers look lightweight. For
Mies, a pure glass building has the character of a sailing boat.4
The structural frame of the Lake Shore Drive Apartments had
to conform to the standards of the high-rise city of Chicago and
the building rests on timber pile foundations. Mies had already
used a reinforced steel framework for his Promontory Apartments
project, although there the buildings were not totally enclosed by
glass. In his eyes, it was nonsense5 to wrap a reinforced con-
crete construction in a mantle, but fire safety requirements stipu-
lated that multi-storey steel buildings must have a fire-retardant
sheathing. For this reason the steel members of the structure had
to be encased in a concrete mantle. The architectonic challenge
was to detail the skin of the building in such a way that it com-
municated the filigree character of a steel building. Mies chose to
sheath the concrete mantle with a steel covering and to then apply
I-beam girders to the exterior. This ordinary steel profile acquires
an ornamental quality when used as a decorative vertical element.
View from the southeast

156 Views of the outdoor areas
860 Lake Shore Drive
View from within looking north 860- 880 L ake Sh o re Dri ve 157
But we are not decorating. This is structure, Mies is quick
to remind us: Now, first, I am going to tell you the real reason,
and then I am going to tell you a good reason by itself. It was very
important to preserve and extend the rhythm which the mullion
set up on the rest of the building. We looked at it on the model
without the steel section attached to the corner column and it
did not look right. Now, the other reason is that this steel section
was needed to stiffen the plate which covers the corner column
so this plate would not ripple, and also we needed it for strength
when the sections were hoisted into place. Now, of course, thats
a very good reason, but the other reason is the real reason.6

Because the buildings were experimental prototypes, the con
structions were not technically mature. The upper pane of the alu-
minium windows could be opened to allow the residents to clean
the windows. However, this mechanism proved problematic, be-
cause not only did the tower sway markedly in bad weather, but it
also rained into the building.7 In the 1970s, the upper panes were
then successfully fixed closed. Mies had proposed an air-condition
ing and cooling system but this was not installed for cost reasons,
resulting in significant climatic problems. The residents began to
install their own small air-conditioning units, but these have since
been replaced by a central air-conditioning system. The towers
were comprehensively renovated in 2009, and the floor paving
and glass panes at ground levels were renewed.

This work of architecture has been enormously influential. The im-
pact of these buildings has changed and continues to change
the face of cities around the world. For the investor, Herbert
Greenwald, the project was a great success and he began to ap-
ply this model to other sites and locations. It was not long before
Greenwalds projects accounted for two thirds of the work under-
taken at Mies office. But compared with the numerous imitations
by other architects, and even with Mies own later developments,
these two towers have a particular poetry about them. The win-
dows are not all of the same size and as the structure of the skel
eton frame is visible on the exterior, the facades have a rhythmic
appearance of wider and narrower openings.
In contrast to high-rise buildings that stand directly on the
ground or have been placed atop a lower block, the transition
between the ground plane and the building has been articulated
very carefully. A unique spatial situation has been created with a
recessed walkway at ground level that provides sudden views into
the distance. This is a space of its own that is especially made to
be experienced on foot. This dynamic succession of spaces con-
trasts with the seemingly pure rationalism of the towers.
1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in: Frhlicht, no. 4, 1922, pp. 122124. English
translation in Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the
Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p.240.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Graeme Shankland in: The
Listener, 15 Oct. 1959, p. 621.
3 This expression was used by Peter Carter in: Bauen + Wohnen, July 1961,
p. 240. (in: Architectural Design, March 1961).
4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in a letter dated 2 July 1928, in: Fritz
Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art,
5 Ibid., p. 247.
6 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe cited in: Architectural Forum, Nov. 1952,
pp. 9499.
7 Cf. Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical
Biography, Chicago, London 2012, p. 293.
158 860 8 8 0 L ake S h o re Dr ive

McCormick House Robert McCormick, one of the project developers of the Lake
Elmhurst, Illinois, USA, 195152 Shore Drive Apartments, commissioned Mies to build one storey
of the towers at ground level for use as a private residence.1
The prefabricated frame construction was delivered by lorry and
erected in two days. Although the floor plan deviates from that of
the apartments in Chicago, the detailing of the faades is more or
less identical. Visitors enter the building beneath a covered ent-
rance area and find themselves immediately in the living and din
ing room, through which one reaches the study. The second part
of the building contains the kitchen and childrens room. The build
ing, which McCormick used as a weekend house, was dismantled
in 1994 and reerected in the grounds of the neighbouring Elmhurst
Art Museum. While the steel construction was transferred intact,
the building was originally conceived in conjunction with a park-
like garden designed by the landscape architect Alfred Caldwell,
and this connection no longer exists. The interior fittings were like-
wise lost during the dismantling of the building.
1 For a detailed history of the building see: Mies van der Rohe Houses, 2G,
no. 48/49, 200809, pp. 198205, and: Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst,
Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, Chicago, London 2012, p. 301.
Floor plan
Exterior views 159
Greenwald House The house is based on the same principle as the McCormick
Weston, Connecticut, USA, 195156 House, placing a single-storey of the Lake Shore Drive Apartments
at ground level into the landscape. In fact, the houses faade is
made of actual unused elements of the high-rise buildings faade.
The entrance leads directly into the central living room, which is
flanked on either side by two wood-panelled service cores. Next
to the entrance is a freestanding storage cabinet that serves as a
divider screening off the bedroom. A second entrance leads di-
rectly into the kitchen. A low wall of rough-hewn stone creates a
step in the terrain allowing the surrounding woodland to be appre-
ciated from a podium. The house, built for the brother of Herbert
Greenwald, Mies most important client at the time, was extended
in 195960 by two bays according to plans by Mies office. Later,
a further extension and pavilions were added that are grouped
around the building.1 The interior was also subsequently altered.
1 For further information on the alterations and additions, see: Paul Gold
berger, Modifying Mies Peter L. Gluck Rises to the Modernists Challenge,
in: Architectural Digest, vol. 2, 1992, pp. 7282.
Exterior view
Interior
160 Floor plan
Commonwealth Promenade Apartments Of the four towers originally planned, only the southern pair was
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 195357 completed. A covered walkway connects the towers with one an
other and extends out into the neighbouring Lincoln Park. The
detailing of the aluminium curtain walling is identical to that of
the Esplanade Apartments constructed at the same time. Pivoting
sections in the lower part of the window provide ventilation and
incorporate a fly screen in the plane of the glazing. Compared
with the buildings on 860880 Lake Shore Drive, the concrete
construction used here made it possible to incorporate an extra
storey within the same overall building height. In contrast to the
standard I-beam sections applied to the exterior of the Lake Shore
Drive Apartments, the aluminium profiles used here were develop
ed especially for the curtain wall faade. The more pronounced
thermal expansion of aluminium, however, made it necessary to
include expansion joints that interrupt the continuity of the vertic
al lines at each storey.
For Reyner Banham the use of a more lightweight material
represented a technical advancement: It is a material, where a
large order implies the ability to name your sections [] a choice
of section is as natural in aluminium as is the absence of choice
in steel, where the economics of rolling-mill manufacture still
make fancy sections pretty well impossible.1 As a proponent
of actively employing technical advancements in architecture,
Banham regarded the possibilities of detailing with aluminium
as far more elaborate.
1 Reyner Banham, Almost Nothing is Too Much, in: Architectural Review,

Aug. 1962, p. 128.
Site plan
South faade
Window detail 161
Esplanade Apartments The two apartment buildings at 900910 Lake Shore Drive continue
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 195357 Mies series of lakeside buildings. On a site immediately north of
the existing towers at 860880 Lake Shore Drive, Mies planned
two further high-rise buildings that adhere to the same urban con-
cept: the buildings are placed as freestanding elements in space
and do not align with the massing of the historical urban grain of
the city. While the Esplanade apartment buildings also stand on
a trapezoidal site, the two buildings are not identical in size. The
southernmost of the two buildings is shaped like a monumental
slab and the two buildings are placed closer to each other than
their counterparts at 860880. Mies client, Herbert Greenwald,
paid the highest amount ever paid at that time for a site for resi-
dential use in Chicago.1
The consequent need to make optimal use of the site was
achieved by significantly increasing the size of the building vol
umes and by reducing the storey height. A new design for the ceil
ing construction made it possible to reduce the structural height
of the ceilings. This made it possible to incorporate three addi-
tional storeys and at the same time to slightly reduce the overall
height of the building. Although the fundamental concept of the
buildings that of fully glazed rectangular prisms is identical to
that of their predecessors, technical advances in the few years bet-
ween the buildings construction meant that the construction and
the materials used changed. While the buildings at 860880 were
prototypes, the Esplanade Apartments are optimised both tech-
nologically as well as economically.
The problems revealed by the prototypes were tackled in the
second pair of buildings not only by making modifications in de-
tail but also through the choice of a different material. The struc-
tural frame is again completely fronted by a glazed skin, but this
time the faade is made of anodized aluminium mounted on a con-
crete frame. The faade itself is articulated as a curtain wall con-
struction, this time with continuous, equally-sized large windows.
To resolve the overheating experienced in the earlier buildings,
tinted panes and air-conditioning were installed.
While the construction was previously left exposed on the fa-
ade, the reinforced concrete columns are now set back from the
edge of the building to provide a cavity between the columns and
the external skin for air-conditioning. The dark grey tint of the glaz
ing heightens the impression of the curtain wall as an indepen-
dent element and emphasises the volumetric sculptural quality of
the building. For the characteristic vertical mullions applied to the
outer face of the faade, a custom extrusion made of a luminium
was now used instead of the continuous lines of steel I-beams used
at 860880, which were made of two standard T-profiles welded
together. Because aluminium is more susceptible to thermal ex-
pansion than steel, the mullions are separated by small gaps at
each storey to accommodate thermal expansion.
A low-lying building was constructed to house a car park with a
flat roof that served as a communal sun deck. This however, com-
promises the expansive sense of space at ground level that charac-
terises the earlier buildings as well as the transition from outdoors
to indoors, achieved in the earlier building by using continuous uni-
form travertine paving. The entrance lobby is instead paved with
terrazzo flooring while the inner core is clad with marble. The glaz
ing at ground floor level is partially transparent and partially trans-
lucent, transforming the walls into illuminated objects at night. Un-
like the buildings at 860880, lamella can be seen beneath the first
floor ceiling that serve as vents for the air-conditioning.

After the transfer of the apartments into private ownership at the
end of the 1970s, many residents made alterations to their apart-
ments, some combining several units into one. The buildings de-
sign was, however, conceived to accommodate this kind of flexi-
bility. Since then, the building has been extensively renovated.
162 Site plan

860880 Lake Shore Drive and Esplanade Apartments 163
View from the northeast
164 Walkway between the buildings
The concept of curtain wall construction as an independent layer
hung in front of the loadbearing structure was not only pioneering
for Mies own work but has shaped the construction of high-rise
buildings to the present day. Likewise, the experimental use of alu-
minium as a building material has also become common practice,
especially for the faades of high-rise buildings.
Although the Esplanade Apartments lack some of the concep-
tual clarity and heroic spirit of the towers at 860880, and are con-
sequently not as famous architecturally as their predecessors, the
apartments they contain are more expensive. Despite lacking the
minimalist clarity of the earlier buildings, the apartments still en-
joy spectacular panoramic views over Lake Michigan and are ap-
pointed to a higher technical standard, including better lifts. As
such, the apartments have lost none of their original attraction.
1 This was not, however, the only record it broke: Esplanade was the tall
est concrete building yet constructed in Chicago, and the first with a flat-
slab concrete frame. It boasted the citys first central air-conditioning
for a residential tower; one of the first unitized, anodized aluminium cur-
tain walls; and Chicagos first large-scale use of tinted, heat-absorbing
glass. Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical
Biography, Chicago 2012, p. 294.
Exterior view Esplanad e A part ment s 165

Seagram Building
New York, USA, 195458

View from the southwest 167
The slender office tower has a monumental presence on New Yorks
prestigious Park Avenue. Although the pristine prismatic volume of
the building is enveloped by a grid of identical windows, the build
ing exhibits a tripartite structure in the classical manner: a base
zone is formed by raising the building off the ground on columns
and creating a glazed entrance lobby, and the shaft of the building
is crowned by an opaque section housing the technical services.
The office tower is set back from the street by about 30 me-
tres to form an urban plaza, creating a rare open space in the
densely built urban fabric of midtown New York. While most
buildings in Manhattan typically fill the entire block creating a
continuous line of frontages along the street, the setting back of
the tower makes it appear like a solitary object when approached
from the plaza. Although the building is also stepped and adhe-
res to the block pattern, it presents itself as a freestanding ob-
ject. On the reverse side, it steps back and aligns with the New
York pattern of streets and blocks, which even landmarks in the
skyline such as the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Build
ing were obliged to do.
The plaza is so vital to the project that Mies saw it endangered
when the client briefly considered placing a bank building on the
plaza.1 Paved with granite slabs, containing two shallow pools
and flanked by marble bench-like blocks, the plaza represents an
essential part of the architecture, functioning as a podium that
visitors must cross before they pass through the columns of the
entrance lobby. Raised a few steps above the street, the plaza
forms a plinth akin to that of a Greek temple and denotes a space
set apart from the hustle and bustle of the sidewalk.
While the loadbearing structure of the building is steel, the
hung curtain wall faade is made of bronze. The bronze tint of
the glazing lends the skin of the building a sense of unity. The
building employs the same principle of externally applied verti-
cal I-beam mullions that Mies used in his Chicago high-rise build
ings, however here the mullion profiles as well as the glazing
have been custom-fabricated. The wide-flange H-shaped form
of the profiles was arrived at through innumerable tests because
of what Mies described as its precise interplay of umbra and
penumbra.2 The delicate relief they lend to the smooth skin of
the building causes its appearance to shift as the light changes.
The use of especially high-quality materials in the building
defines its character. Before visitors even ascend the steps to
the plaza, they come into contact with the green marble blocks.
When asked for his opinion, the client expressed a particular
liking for bronze, and in practice this infrequently used alloy of
copper and zinc does indeed have advantages over steel and
aluminium. Bronze is corrosion-resistant and less susceptible to
thermal expansion than aluminium. The bronze faade echoes
the underlying structural skeleton and in some sections the pa-
nels between the profiles have been filled with panels of green
marble rather than panes of glass.
The floor plan is based on a 1.41 metre module and is the
product of a combination of ideal office sizes as well as the New
York planning laws which stipulated that a tower may occupy a
maximum of 25 percent of the floor area of the site. Mies re-
calls that since it was to be the first major office building which
I was to build, I asked for two types of advice for the develop-
ment of the plans. One, the best real estate advice as to the ty-
pes of desirable rental space and, two, professional advice re-
garding the New York City Building Code.3
To execute the building, Mies entered into a cooperation
with Philip Johnson, about whom Phyllis Lambert, the director
of p lanning, wrote: Knowing that Mies primary concern was
the articulation of structure, form, and material, Philip quickly
grasped that Seagram presented an unusual opportunity to im-
prove on many of the standard industrial design elements used
in office buildings: doors, elevator cabs, hardware, lighting,
Views across the plaza

168 Corner detail
View from the northeast
Entrance lobby S eagram B u i l ding 169
plumbing fixtures, and room partitions, as well as lettering and
signage [] eventually expanding to include the design of entire
office floors, lighting strategies for the whole building. [] Philip
used powerful theatrical effects. 4 He designed the interiors such
as The Four Seasons restaurant and, together with the lighting
planner Richard Kelly, the design of the continuous illuminated
ceilings that at night turned the building into a luminous object.

The complex has remained largely unchanged to the present day.
The planting of weeping willows on the plaza did not survive and
was soon replaced by gingko trees. Conversions works were only
undertaken in some of the interiors. In 2000, the architects Diller,
Scofidio + Renfro designed a restaurant in the building.

Although the building no longer stands as conspicuously as it once
did now that the lower-rise buildings in the surroundings have been
succeeded by similarly high and abstract towers, the building has
lost none of its monumentality. As Mies was designing the build
ing, he had just completed the vast Convention Hall in Chicago
which he described as his first building of really m
onumental qual
ity.5 Mies buildings like those of Peter Behrens consistently
displayed an immanent sense of monumentality, but Mies was re-
ferring here to sheer size: But, in fact, there is a certain size that
is a reality. Take the pyramids in Egypt and make them only 15
feet high. It is nothing. There is just this enormous size that ma-
kes all the difference.6
As pleasant as the Seagram Building is, remarked Philip
Johnson in 1978, its still a flat-topped glass box, and that we
got a little bit bored with.7 In retrospect, however, the timeless
quality of this building has become ever more apparent, espe-
cially in comparison to buildings built over the last few decades.
A particular quality of the Seagram Building is the many different
ways in which it reduces its vast scale to that of the pedestrian.
In contrast to the many high-rise tower blocks built since then
that offer nothing of benefit to the passer-by, this project crea-
ted an urban space that continues to be used by the citizens of
New York on a daily basis.
1 Phyllis Lambert, Building Seagram, New Haven, London 2013, p. 71.

Phyllis Lambert, daughter of the client Samuel Bronfman, had proposed
Mies as the architect and oversaw the project as director of planning.
2 Lambert 2013, p. 62.
3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Cameron Alread and
others on 11 May 1960, cited in: Lambert 2013, p. 46.
4 Lambert 2013, pp. 122123.
5 Ludwig Mies in conversation with Katharine Kuh, in: The Saturday Review,
23 Jan. 1965, p. 22.
7 Philip Johnson in conversation with Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel
(library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/dsva)
Faade details
170 Detail of the lift
View from the southwest Seagram B u i l di ng 171
Lafayette Park
Detroit, Michigan, USA, 195558

The residential project lies on a green, landscaped site just a short
distance on foot from the centre of Detroit. The apartments open
onto a communal outdoor area that transitions into a public park.
Although all the buildings are identical in appearance, the project
consists of three different building types: a single-storey courtyard
building, two-storey terraced units and high-rise apartment blocks
of which initially just one was realised. The fully glazed frontages
of the terraced houses open not onto private gardens but look
out over the collective green areas.
The project replaced a low-income neighbourhood that was
considered a slum with a correspondingly high crime rate.1 The
total demolition of an entire neighbourhood made it possible
to create a new building arrangement that aimed to retain the
middle class in the city centre. Much like a collage, this model
settlement was implanted into the old fabric of the city. Along-
side Mies, who was responsible for the architecture, Ludwig Hil-
berseimer and Alfred Caldwell were commissioned as urban
planner and landscape architect respectively.
The design of the landscape is a key aspect of the overall
concept. The trees, which are now mature, have grown to form
a wood and only now provide the much-needed shade to make
the fully glazed buildings tolerable climatically. American honey
locust trees were planted, which have very small leaves that do
not fully shade the ground but produce a dappled light. They
provide a natural canopy, their crowns covering the complex and
screening the lower buildings from the high-rise apartments. A
second level of vegetation, including colourful flowering trees
and shrubs such as crab apple and various species of lilac, per-
meates the rest of the site. Cockspur hawthorn hedges augment
the overall composition, dividing the open areas into zones and
shielding the interiors from view.
The urban concept can only be described as a clean-sweep
solution: after the site and all the buildings on it had been cleared
and the project developer Herbert Greenwald had commissioned
his team of architects with the design, Hilberseimer also called
for the existing network of streets to be overridden, replacing
them with a system of closed-off access roads to create a park
in the centre in which a school was located. The intention was to
provide pedestrian access to the school without having to cross
any roads. Hilberseimer conceived of a mix of buildings in order
to create an extensive urban landscape with the high-rise apart-
ment blocks placed far apart from one another. In a somewhat
technocratic manner, he called for a ruralisation of the city and
an urbanisation of the country:
If the active forces now concentrated in large cities could
be more evenly distributed, activity would be spread through
all the country. City and country, coming closer to each other,
would influence each other to their mutual benefit, materially
and spiritually. Healthy conditions would be restored every-
where. What is pleasant in city life could be combined with the
pleasantness of country life. The disadvantages of each way of
life would disappear. 2
Although Hilberseimer oriented the buildings to maximise
their solar exposure, Mies refined their arrangement, ordering
them in a rhythmic structure. The approach he used to define
space is similar in concept to that of the IIT Campus. In contrast
to the serial repetition of identical elements, he placed clear rect
angular volumes in a rigorous orthogonal arrangement to create
a dynamic succession of spaces. The four rows of the courtyard
houses enclosed by walls are arranged offset from the 17 terra-
ced rows of housing to maximize their view of the natural sur-
roundings. Even the car parking at the end of the closed-off roads
was sunk by a metre to remove them from view.
In the low-rise buildings, a visual axis always leads straight
from the entrance door right through the building. The living
areas are screened by hedges, walls and in the case of the
173
courtyard houses through the creation of a raised plateau. Steps
lead up to the entrances of these houses. The row houses mean
while have a cellar with continuous service corridors that also pro-
vide access to the heating systems and refuse containers.
The apartment blocks look like a continuation of the terraced
units but stacked vertically on top of one another. This stacked
appearance is a product of the large horizontal window panes
that have the character of a panoramic window and offer a view
of the skyline of the city and even as far as Canada. This solution
was achieved in combination with an unusual treatment of the
window profiles: instead of using Mies typical vertical I-beam,
they consist of two ][-profiles used back to back.

The settlement is operated as a cooperative and the residents are
permitted only to make alterations to the interiors. Consequently,
the kitchens have most frequently been modified. The most fun-
damental alteration, however, concerns the renewal of the entire
glazing with new thermal glazing with a dark-coloured tint. The ar-
chitecture as well as the landscaping of Lafayette Park is now listed
and subject to conservation regulations. Residents are only able
to freely plant an area within one metre of the houses. The vege-
tation has nevertheless changed as a whole. For example, the sys-
tem of 1.78metre high hedges is not as homogenous in appear
ance as was originally intended.3 The later phases of the project
were not realised according to the original plans and a few years
later, Mies also designed the Lafayette Towers on an adjacent site.

When Lafayette Park was planned, the city was just beginning to
shrink. Since then Detroit has declined dramatically, losing more
than half of its original residents. In summer 2013, the city decla-
red bankruptcy. The areas of the city most affected by the exo-
dus into the suburbs were the inner-city neighbourhoods. In this
context, past visions for shrinking metropolitan regions are once
again becoming relevant. In his 1977 essay The City Within the
City, O
swald Mathias Ungers made a case for vacating entire u rban
districts in order to convert these back into green areas. The result
would be islands of city scattered in a sea of park landscape. Ini-
tiatives in this vein are now being discussed for Detroit.
While Hilberseimer vehemently argued for the rejection of
any kind of density in the city, we are now also aware of its neg
ative implications. At the same time, anyone who visits Lafay-
ette Park today will experience it as a green oasis. While many
similar urban renewal projects have failed, this project is still re-
garded as having been successful. People identify strongly with
the park, although few residents are aware of the architect re
sponsible. The social composition of the residents is mixed and
the crime rate is low even though there are no fences.
1 The predominantly African American neighbourhood of Black Bottom

was demolished in 1950, but it was years before a project developer was
willing to take on the project, despite the availability of state subsidies. For
further information on the history of Lafayette Park, see: Charles Waldheim
(ed.), Hilberseimer/Mies van der Rohe Lafayette Park, Munich, B erlin,
London, New York 2004.
2 Ludwig Hilberseimer, The Nature of Cities; Origin, Growth, and Decline,
Pattern and Form, Planning Problems, Chicago 1955, p. 267.
3 The current state of the settlement is documented in: Danielle Aubert,
Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani (eds.), Thanks for the View Mr. Mies:
Lafayette Park, Detroit 2012.
Courtyard house
174 Terraced houses
Views from the gardens L afaye tte Park 175
176 Pavilion Apartments
Site plan
Corner detail Lafaye tte Park 177
Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments
Newark, New Jersey, USA, 195860
Site plan
Upper floor plan
The three high-rise slabs are distributed across a site whose fourth
wall is the skyline of Manhattan in the distance. The complex lies
just 20 minutes by train from New Yorks Penn Station and bord
ers Branch Brook Park, which like Central Park was designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted. The largest of the three buildings, the
135-metre long Colonnade Apartment Building, directly adjoins
the park. The buildings are placed more than 600 metres apart.
Mies remarked that, Modern buildings of our time are so huge
that one must group them. Often the space between these build
ings is as important as the buildings themselves.1
The buildings could not contrast more with the dense pattern
of 19th century buildings that characterised Newark at that time.
The comprehensive urban-renewal project aimed to alleviate
what was then regarded as unhealthily cramped conditions in the
city. The project was part of a nationwide programme of similar
initiatives and was undertaken by the project developer Herbert
Greenwald with whom Mies worked regularly. For him, the vent
ure was financially lucrative. The rationalism of the architecture
eschews all forms of individual expression and makes neither re-
ference to local materials or building forms nor responds to the
historical plan of the city. The architecture of the buildings re-
plicates that of earlier buildings by Mies, for example in Detroit.
Mies himself conceded that if there really is no new way to be
found we are not afraid to stick with the old one that we found
previously. So, I do not make every building different. 2
As with his other work, Mies architecture nevertheless res-
ponds explicitly to the context. The project responds to the in-
cline of the topography, and the slabs of the Colonnade Apart-
ments are raised off the ground atop a large plinth reached by a
flight of steps from which one has a view over the site. This ena-
bles the ground floor zone to remain open by locating the ser-
vice and communal spaces laundry room, offices for the man
agement and shops in the plinth. The plinth takes the form of
a plateau that extends from the park right through the building.
The only fixed points in the ground floor plan are the stair and
elevator cores, and the entrance to the two glazed lobbies leads
through a forest of columns.
The floor plans of the apartments vary and each storey con-
tains a range of different-sized apartments. However, none of the
windows can be opened in a traditional sense and their arrange-
ment there are over 8000 identical windows is the same re-
gardless of which direction they face. Ventilation is instead prov
ided by fixed elements at floor level in which the air conditioning
unit is integrated. This element also contains flaps for providing
natural ventilation. In contrast to the well-illuminated interiors of
the apartments, the inner access corridors have no notable ar-
chitectural qualities.
The aluminium faades are a simplified variant of faades
developed for past projects. All the components have been
designed so that they can be handled by a single person and the
panes of glass are held in place by neoprene strips. The more
this process of simplification progressed, the closer it came to
a situation that Mies had prophesied back in 1924: The work
on the building site will then be exclusively of an assembly type,
bringing about an incredible reduction of building time. This
will bring with it a significant reduction of building costs.3 Mies
argued that the industrialization of the building trades is a mat-
ter of materials and called for the development of lightweight
materials. Years later in 1958 he would declare: When it be-
comes economically possible, building will become montage.4
Ludwig Hilberseimer who may have inspired the urban con-
cept of the complex regarded aluminium as a revolutionary ad-
vancement: It is possible that this material may revolutionize the
concept of building skins, as it is the least expensive, protects
the surface of the reinforced concrete and can be prefabricated
in any desired shape. 5 The architectural critic Reyner Banham
179
described the detailing of the aluminium faades as completely
convincing, especially when compared with the bronze faade
of the Seagram Building, which was so elaborate as to be out of
architectural and moral balance.6 Discussions of the project
have posed the question as to whether buildings of such dimen-
sions and forms can still be human. This was felt to be the case
as the spatial organisation and the spatial proportions com-
municate an impression of tranquillity and order. 7

The buildings themselves have survived largely unchanged, al
though some renovations have been made that do not reflect the
character of the architecture. Mies minimalist balustrade around
the plinth of the Colonnade Apartments, for example, has been
replaced by a vertically structured fence. The surroundings have,
however, changed significantly. At the end of the 1960s the city
entered a period of catastrophic decline from which it has yet to
fully recover and this has likewise affected the demographic com-
position of its residents. Many of the surrounding buildings have
since been demolished.

It is an experience to walk around the complex. The spatial ges
ture of the tall slabs raised off the ground is heightened by the ab-
stract form of the buildings. From one of the highest points of the
topography, near to a large cathedral, one can see that the Co-
lonnade Apartments have been placed on a ledge in the site in a
manner that recalls the Riehl House. While only fragments of the
surrounding urban fabric remain intact due to the citys decline,
the park has continued to flourish over a period of more than 100
years. Mies buildings meanwhile still stand in their original skin,
their windowpanes quivering in stormy weather creating vibrating
reflections of the clouds. Few of the white middle class tenants for
which the apartments were originally built still live here as the sur-
roundings are now regarded as unsafe and run-down, and architec-
ture fans are rarely to be seen. Similarly, the high-rise apartments
without balconies are no longer seen as being suitable for families.
1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Katharine Kuh, in: The
produced on a phonograph record, Mies in Berlin, Bauwelt. English lan-
guage source: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1986), in: David Spaeth: Mies van
der Rohe, Stuttgart, 1986, p. 11
3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Industrielles Bauen in: G Material zur
elementaren Gestaltung, no. 3, June 1924, pp. 813. English language
translation in Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word Mies van der Rohe on the
Building Art, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, p.249.
4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Christian Norberg-Schulz,
in: Luvre de Mies van der Rohe, ditions de lArchitecture d Aujourdhui,
Paris 1958, p. 100.
5 Ludwig Hilberseimer, Mies van der Rohe, Chicago 1956, p. 64.
6 Reyner Banham, Almost Nothing is Too Much, in: Architectural Review,
Aug. 1962, p. 128.
7 Cf. berbauung Colonnade Park in Newark in: Bauen+Wohnen, July
1961, p. 248. The detailing of the buildings is presented as a progressive
solution elsewhere in the same journal one finds job advertisements from
modern architecture offices asking for candidates with a progressive
understanding of architecture.
Pavilion Apartments
Colonnade Apartments
180 Plinth of the Colonnade Apartments
View looking northwest
Colonnade Apartments C olonnad e and Pavi l io n A part ment s 181
Bacardi Office Building Mies had originally designed an office building for Bacardi in Cuba,
Mexico City, Mexico, 195861 but the project was abandoned following the Cuban Revolution.
Soon after, however, a second project followed for an office build
ing in the grounds of the Bacardi bottling plant in Mexico City,
which Flix Candela had designed as a concrete shell structure.
Mies building stands in front of the bottling plant and is raised
off the ground on columns so as to be visible at eye level from
the elevated highway passing the site.1 This decision was, how-
ever, anything but economical, especially as much of the usable
space had to be sacrificed for the staircase. The two service cores
are clad in Mexican mahogany and the floors and the stairs pa-
ved with travertine. Despite the two-storey nature of the structure,
the 24 steel columns could be left exposed. Curtains and the use
of tinted glass provide the only form of protection from the sun.
1 Mies explanation was as follows: The highway is higher than the site.
So if we would have built a one-story building there, you would see only
the roof. That was the reason that we made a two-story building there. in:
John Peter, The Oral History of Modern Architecture Interviews with the
Greatest Architects of the Twentieth Century, New York 1994, p. 172. The
building is documented in: Bauwelt, 6 Aug. 1962, pp. 886888.
Ground floor plan

182 First floor plan
Entrance faade
Corner of the building 183
One Charles Center
Upper floor plan

Like the Seagram Building, the floor plan of the tower has a
T-shaped plan. The detailing and colouration of the faade has like-
wise been carried over from the Seagram Building, although here
anodized aluminium has been used in place of bronze. A new de-
tail was developed for the inner corner of the faades that empha-
sises the principle of the curtain walling. By allowing the external
skin to step back at the corners, a vertical cavity results in the in-
side corner that is expressed as a negative volume. Following a
series of renovations at ground level, some of the original sub
stance was lost including the replacement of the original entrance
situation and the demolishment of an exterior stair beneath the
building that bridged the different heights of the sloping terrain.1
1 Cf. Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical
Biography, Chicago, London 2012, pp. 369370.
Views of the faade showing inner corner 185

Lafayette Towers
Detroit, Michigan, USA, 195963
Site plan
View of the Pavilion Apartments
The two parallel high-rise slab buildings are identical in arrange-
ment and detailing to the Pavilion Apartments in Newark, New
Jersey, that were planned at the same time. Here, though, the
buildings have been placed closer to one another with a car park
in between. The construction of the flat part of the building has a
continuous opening beneath the ceiling slab reminiscent of Mies
unbuilt concrete office building project from 1923. The roof ter-
race is designed as a sun deck with a swimming pool. The complex
is an extension of Mies earlier Lafayette Park estate, the urban
planning of which was conceived together with Ludwig Hilbersei-
mer. This second phase was originally also planned as a mixture
of single-storey courtyard buildings, two-storey terraced houses
and apartment blocks.1
1 Cf. Charles Waldheim (ed.), Hilberseimer/Mies van der Rohe Lafayette

Park, Munich, Berlin, London, New York 2004. For further information on
the history of the buildings use: Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar and Natasha
Chandani (eds.), Thanks for the View Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit 2012.
Overall complex
Swimming pool
Parking garage 187
Federal Center The complex consists of a courthouse, offices and a single-storey
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 195974 post office. The urban concept of inserting a high-rise building
and an adjacent plaza into dense urban surroundings, as used
previously for the Seagram Building, is extended here to fill a lar-
ger site. Two high-rise slabs in the heart of Chicagos inner city are
grouped around a single-storey square pavilion to create an ex-
tensive outdoor area. In contrast to the deep canyon-like streets
of the surroundings, the buildings are perceived as freestanding
elements in urban space. The large scale of the complex is appar
ent throughout, for example in the over eight-metre-high room
height of the post office building.
Mies is known only to have commented on the project as fol-
lows: We put the buildings so that each one gets the best situ-
ation and that the space between them is about the best we can
achieve.1 For him this was a question of proportions. Several dif-
ferent variants of the urban massing were developed. In addition
to the asymmetrical arrangement that was eventually realised, a
variant with a single tower and one with two identical building slabs
arranged parallel to one another were presented. A fourth smaller
building was eventually created to house the technical services.
The resulting complex represents not only an architectural compo-
sition of abstract clarity but also a new urban concept in the city.
Although the faade articulation of the two towers is identical,
they contain different functions. The 42-storey Kluczynski Building
to the south contains offices for various federal authorities, while
the slab-like 30-storey Dirksen Building contains courtrooms. The
courtrooms, each two storeys high, are arranged above one an
other in the core of the building and are clad internally with stained
walnut panelling. Lacking windows, they are lit by continuous illu-
minated ceilings made of a suspended aluminium grid of square
panels. Offices are arranged next to the windows. Despite the uni-
form appearance of the exterior, the internal organisation of the
1
building is very complex, with public and private areas kept strictly
3 separate from one another: The judges private elevators connect
to underground parking; four special elevators carry prisoners to
2
cells adjoining the courtrooms; jurors use the private corridor, as
do judges, lawyers and staff; the public is restricted to the wide
corridor serving the courtrooms.2
Although the two towers are separate freestanding objects,
one perceives them as being part of the same complex, their L-
shaped arrangement marking out an urban space. Despite the
uniformity of the faades, they are vertically structured: the tops
of the towers are crowned by a band of opaque panels that encl
ose the services and plant room, and a similar band wraps around
the waist of the taller of the two towers just above a third of the
height of the building. Reflections play across the surfaces of the
faades as the ambient conditions change, lending the faades a
sense of dynamism. The towers are raised off the ground on col
umns with fully glazed lobbies, creating a sense of spatial conti-
nuity at ground level that is further underlined by the continuous
paving of the floor. The plaza is paved with grey Rockville granite
and this material continues on into the hall of the post office and
the lobbies of the high-rise towers.
The interior of the post office, which opens completely towards
the plaza, was originally planned as a clear-span structure, but the
soil conditions were deemed inadequate and the roof of the space
is borne instead by four cruciform columns. Two installation ducts
clad with green-coloured granite extend from the floor to the ceil
ing, which like that in Crown Hall is suspended from above. The
walls containing the post boxes are likewise clad with granite. Lorry
access for deliveries and collections is arranged below ground.
Both the structural framework as well as the faade is made
of steel. For Mies, this represented an ideal combination, albeit
one he was only rarely able to realise. His residential towers were
mostly reinforced steel constructions clad with aluminium curtain
walling, and he had only once succeeded in combining a steel
Site plan
1 U.S. Post Office
2 John C. Kluczynski Federal Building
188 3 Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse
View from the west
View from the north 189
structural skeleton with a steel faade before, namely in his pro-
ject for the apartment blocks on 860880 Lake Shore Drive, also
in Chicago. Unlike the earlier prototypical project, however, the
external skin of the faade does not lie in the plane of the sup-
porting structure but is positioned in front of it. By locating the
loadbearing structure within the external skin, it is easier to handle
their respective differential thermal expansion because the struc-
tural frame and the faade are two separate elements indepen-
dent of one another. The steel profiles of the faade were welded
together on site and painted Mies trademark matt-graphite col
our. The individual window casements were made of dark-coloured
aluminium with dark-tinted panes of glazing.

While the only alterations made to the buildings concern the ar-
rangement of the interiors, the plaza was extensively renovated
from 201011 and incorporated some changes. To comply with
stricter security regulations for government buildings, granite bol-
lards have been installed in a ring around the towers. As originally
intended, further courtrooms have been inserted into the building.
Many of the corridors have since been clad with granite and the
linoleum flooring has been covered with carpeting.3 Although the
complex was first completed in 1974 and was undertaken in con-
junction with three other architecture offices Schmidt, Garden
and Erikson, C. F. Murphy Associates, and A. Epstein and Sons
Mies was the design architect for the project. The decision to in-
stall Alexander Calders Flamingo, a bright red steel sculpture
on the plaza, was made without Mies who had originally foreseen
planting at this spot.

To build the Federal Center, it was necessary to demolish the Chi-
cago Federal Building, a typical neo-classical building with mo-
numental columns and a crowning dome built from 18981905.
While the previous building clearly communicated its public func-
tion, the uniform faades of the high-rise towers offer no indication
of what they contain. For Mies, this anonymous character was an
ideal: he was so utterly convinced of the universal applicability of
his architectural solutions that he applied the same basic architec-
tural vocabulary to business headquarters as he did to residential
buildings. Later generations of architects would come to regard
this radical uniformity with increasing scepticism. At the end of the
1970s, the architect Philip Johnson commented on Mies architec-
ture, remarking: Another trouble with the International Style was
everything looked like a box. A church looked like a box, not like
a church. A library didnt look like a library.4
With his design for the Federal Center, Mies was able to create
a major urban plaza in the city. It is a public space that contribu-
tes a special quality to the city. Although numerous buildings now
adays populating the centre of Chicago were directly inspired by
Mies architecture, the clarity of expression that characterises the
Federal Center remains unparalleled.
2 Architectural Record, March 1965, p. 132.
3 Detailed information on the alterations made to the building can be
found on the homepage of the U.S. General Service Administration:
www.gsa.gov.
4 Philip Johnson in conversation with Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel in
1978: library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/dsva.
Post office hall

190 Post boxes
Dirksen Building F e deral Cen ter 191
Home Federal Savings and Loan Association The building is set back from the building line to make space for a
Des Moines, Iowa, USA, 196063 public forecourt.1 This area has been paved with granite slabs, in
which square sections have been omitted in an asymmetrical pat-
tern and planted with trees. The paving continues on into the in-
terior of the building, where its surface has been polished. Flank
ing the axially arranged entrance hallway, from which one can see
the city through the perimeter glazing, are two service cores with
stairs. The large open space is covered by a square upper floor
construction that rests on a vast steel frame structure with 18 bays
on each side. The resulting grid with a total of 324 panels forms
a crowning structural framework that is exposed openly to view.
This description can also be applied to the Neue Nationalgalerie
in Berlin. The detailing and division of the perimeter glazing also
exhibits parallels with the museum in Berlin.
1 The building is documented in: Peter Carter, Mies at Work, London 1974,
pp. 130131.

Exterior view
Interior of the cashier hall 193
2400 Lakeview Situated next to a park, this high-rise apartment building has an al-
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 196263 most square floor plan. Although the orientation of the floor plan
is barely perceptible, the directionality is emphasised through
the placement of the columns and the proportions of the ent-
rance hall. The two steps that lead up to the lobby are articulated
as a podium. The complex features a swimming pool shielded by
an enclosing wall, as well as central air conditioning, both indica-
tions of the high standard of the apartments. The 364 apartments
have different arrangements, ranging from floors with one- and
two-room apartments to floors with large four-room apartments.1
At times, the natural illumination suffers due to the great depth
of the floor plans, especially for the north-facing apartments. The
cross-section of the columns of the concrete construction decrea
ses towards the outer faces and the corners as the loadbearing
requirement decreases, although this irregularity is concealed by
the uniform-sized aluminium sheathing.
1 Bauen und Wohnen, Apr. 1965, pp. 169172.

East faade
Entrance canopy 195
Highfield House

The apartment building lies in a green suburb of villas north of the
Johns Hopkins University on the same street as Mies earlier One
Charles Center office building some five kilometres away. Although
the parkland character of the neighbouring university campus per-
meates the low-rise neighbourhood in the vicinity, this stretch of
Charles Street is flanked by a series of high-rise apartment build
ings. Highfield House is a fourteen-storey north-south oriented
slab that stands raised on columns on a platform articulated as an
architecturally landscaped garden.
One enters the complex from the east. Aside from the sup-
porting columns and the access cores, the ground floor is open
affording a view through to the garden beyond. The central sec-
tion of the building with the entrance lobby is fully glazed, while
the remainder is a forest of columns through which one passes
into the garden. Enclosed by a perimeter wall the garden is a pla-
teau containing an arrangement of planting beds, benches and
clearly proportioned sections of lawn. Two rows of five benches
have been placed in front of freestanding glass walls with electric
light sources concealed within their frames. During the day they
serve as screens while at night they are transformed into freestand
ing illuminated objects.1
The car parking is arranged below ground. The almost square
site has a height difference of five metres descending westwards
making it possible for cars to access the parking via a ramp oppo-
site the main entrance. The lower level also houses the communal
facilities which open onto an interior courtyard with trees and a
round swimming pool. This courtyard takes the form of a rect
angular incision of 2:3 proportions in the middle of the rearward
garden, resulting in outdoor areas on two levels. The trees are
arranged freely in beds on the lower level and exemplify a prin-
ciple seen in many of Mies buildings from this period in which the
buildings were rigidly symmetrical but the vegetation was placed
asymmetrically.
The building itself is essentially a pristine block with bands of
uniformly sized windows that lend it an abstract appearance. The
high-rise section of the building is, however, just one part of the
overall complex. As with Mies earlier houses, the building and the
garden form a single composition. The architectonic treatment of
the topography makes it a part of the architecture. As with the gar-
den of the Riehl House, a step in the site is articulated as a plinth
on which the building stands, raised off the ground on columns.
The reinforced concrete construction of the building has been
left unclad. As with the earlier Promontory and Algonquin Apart-
ments as well as the residential buildings at the IIT in Chicago,
the concrete pillars grow more slender with each storey, stepping
back slightly every five storeys as a reflection of the reduction in
load. On the ground floor, one can see that the articulation of the
skeleton frame structure optimises material usage: the central col
umns are X-shaped in cross section, while the corner columns are
L-shaped and the perimeter columns I-shaped. Advances in build
ing technology also made it possible to achieve far greater col
umn spans than in his earlier reinforced concrete buildings. As a
result, the horizontal window openings are more elongated than
in his earlier buildings.
The windowpanes of the fully air-conditioned apartment build
ing have a dark tint and the window frames are made of black-
anodized aluminium, contrasting markedly with the light colour
of the concrete framework. The masonry panels beneath the win-
dows further emphasise the horizontality. The form of the windows
echoes the elongated overall proportions of the building. This ana-
logy between the proportions of the individual elements and the
whole can be seen in other buildings by Mies, for example in the
vertical glazing panels of his high-rise towers.
The spectrum of materials used in the building ranges from
precious wood veneers and travertine stone cladding (for example
for the lift core) to untreated facing concrete for the plinth of the
197
Faade overlooking the garden
198 Garden
building, which has an uncharacteristically rough surface quality
similar to that of brutalist concrete architecture.2 This contrast is
also evident in the paving. The paving slabs are made of concrete
mixed with coarse gravel aggregate and represent a continuation
of the typical materiality of Baltimores pavements. The entrance
hall is paved with terrazzo flooring made of the same basic gra-
vel, giving the impression that the paving has simply been sanded
and polished as if it were a refinement of an ordinary material.

The building has changed little since it was built, although many
of the apartments have been remodelled, most notably the kit-
chens, which were designed by Mies office and had cupboards
clad with wood. The driveway was repaved using stone material
from the same source. The electric lighting of the glass walls in
the garden is, however, no longer in use and the planting has also
changed over time. Originally all three beds in the garden were
simply sections of lawn.

The building was erected just as the population of Baltimore be-
gan to decline dramatically, a trend that continues to the present
day. This was a product of the exodus of the middle classes from
the city centres to the outlying suburbs that were being built all
over America at that time. The architecture of Highfield House
responds to this anti-urban development by providing a living
environment in green surroundings that is also car-friendly. Mies
himself was critical of the developments of the time: Also, you
can avoid the spread of these silly suburban houses. Chicago has
thousands of them all over the place. Instead of eating up the
land they should have been developed as tall and low buildings
in a reasonable way.3
Ironically, the residential high-rise would later become a mo-
del for social housing while monotonous suburban settlements
continue to be built today. Highfield House still offers a high
standardof living and is occupied by predominantly affluent
residents, although this is more a product of the desirable location
than of the architectural design of the building.
1 The building is documented in: Bauen und Wohnen, May 1966, pp. 174176,
and in: Franz Schulze (ed.), The Mies van der Rohe Archive An Illustrated
Catalogue of the Mies van der Rohe Drawings in the Museum of Modern
Art, vol. 19, London, New York 1992, pp. 230248.
2 Cf. Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism Ethic or Aesthetic?, London
1966. Mies buildings for the IIT are also documented in this publication.
Banham argues that Mies use of steel exhibits an honesty of expression
s imilar to that of Le Corbusiers use of concrete.
Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2006, p. 14, 16 (in: Interbuild, June 1959).
Views of the garden Highf i el d Ho u se 199

Detail of the faade
200 Entrance
North faade Hi ghf i el d Ho u se 201
Social Service Administration As with Crown Hall, one enters directly into an expansive hall, from
University of Chicago, Illinois, USA, 196264 which twin sets of stairs lead down to a basement level illuminated
only by a ribbon of windows beneath the ceiling. The pair of sym-
metrically arranged stairs also lead up to a mezzanine floor result
ing in a split-level Raumplan-type arrangement that Mies rarely em-
ployed. While the two zones at either end have two storeys, the
lobby and library that surround the central service core are single-
storey spaces. This arrangement was sufficient for the building to
be classed as a single-storey building, obviating the need to fire-
sheath the loadbearing steel construction. As in Mies other late
work, the wide-flange I beams serve to delineate the faade, but
here they are also part of the loadbearing structure. Four such
steel I beams are welded together to create cruciform columns.1
1 See Architectural Design, May 1966, pp. 245250.

Exterior view
Staircase 203
Meredith Hall The building occupies an elevated position within the campus
Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA, 196265 complex, which is designed as a landscaped garden. Concrete
strips let into the ground surround the building, creating a pla-
teau in the landscape. This frame forms a podium on which the
building stands and is reached by flights of steps. Although the
depth of the building is significant, the entrances lead towards the
light of an internal courtyard in the centre of the building. The dif-
ferent kinds of rooms are clearly separated from one another with
the classrooms and offices of the Faculty of Journalism arranged
around the external wall, framing the block containing the two au-
ditoria in a U-shape. This central volume is positioned as a free-
standing element in space, its full width suddenly becoming ap-
parent as one passes through the building in a manner similar to
arriving at the transept of a church.

View from the campus grounds
Internal courtyard 205
Science Center This building houses the science facilities of the university. On the
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 196268 ground floor there are two symmetrically arranged lecture halls,
while the upper floors contain laboratories illuminated only by rib-
bon windows beneath the ceiling. The principle of using I-beams
to structure the faade was also applied to structure the mono-
lithic, block-like volume of the building, despite the fact that fa-
ade required very little glazing. Only sections of the end eleva-
tions of the building are actually fully glazed, affording expansive
views over the city and the Monongahela River as the building oc-
cupies an elevated position.

Exterior views 207
Neue Nationalgalerie
Berlin-Tiergarten, Germany, 196268

Mies was given free reign: not only could he decide which build
ing he wanted to design and where he wanted to site it but he was
also able to circumvent the building regulations. He elected to de-
sign a museum for art for a location opposite where he once lived
on the banks of the Landwehr Canal, which in the end is ironic
ally largely inconspicuous. Atop a heavy stone podium, he creat
ed a temple-like hall that crowned the architecture but was not
actually the gallery itself. Even when walking around it, one is not
aware that it is the plinth that contains the actual gallery spaces.
Nevertheless, the entrance is unmistakable, the visitor ascending
a broad stair to reach a raised plateau, from which one enters the
hall before descending again into the galleries in the basement.
The monolithic character of the plinth is strengthened further by
the fact that Mies was able to dispense with the prescribed peri-
meter balustrade.
In an interview, Mies relates: I would not have been inter
ested had it been any other normal building. That would not
have been necessary. There are plenty of architects in Berlin that
could have done that. [] Because the site slopes slightly from
the new Potsdamer Strae and the new bridge, it was almost a
given that we should build a two-storey building in which the
lower part would be the actual museum.1
From the main entrance one is not at all aware that there are
two storeys. The building is reduced to a few archetypical ele-
ments, each of which is clearly differentiated from the other and
employs very different materials. Elevated above a podium clad
with granite from Strzegom, the same material used for the pave
ments in Berlin, is a vast flat steel roof, with glazed, non-struc
tural walls spanning between the two. In the interior one can see
two ventilation shafts clad with Greek Tinos marble and bronze
grilles in the manner of monumental chimneys.
From this central hall, visitors are directed downwards via two
steep stairs. A more comfortable angle of descent would not have
been possible within the rigorous constraints of the structural
grid, to which every detail adheres. The gallery spaces for the
exhibits in the basement open onto a planted garden with sculp-
tures and a water basin. From here, one can see the upper hall
again, this time as a pavilion-like crown, while a plant-covered
wall lends the outdoor space a sense of cloister-like intimacy.
Mies wanted to create interior courtyards with trees, flow-
ers and sculptures that relate to the exhibition spaces, that is
to incorporate the surroundings into the realm of art and vice
versa, to create a unity of art and life. 2 For Mies, the architec-
tural dialogue between interior and exterior had a philosophic
al dimension in the context of art. The building as a whole as
well as its individual rooms should always relate to the real world
and be open and connected to it. The connection between art
and reality must be irrefutably apparent. The work of art is con-
densed reality. 3
Although Mies declared that he did not want a temple as a
museum, he describes his work as a classical solution,4 as a
building of clarity and rigour [] very much in the tradition of
Schinkel. 5 He states that, the purpose of such an endeavour
cannot be to build a new temple to art in which (supposedly)
categorical works of culture are to be conserved.6 Nevertheless,
the parallels with classical architecture are readily apparent. The
eight firmly clamped pillars that support the vast roof of the hall
taper towards the top and are crowned by a clearly visible ball
joint that represents an abstract capital. The building itself also
radiates a sense of static tranquillity: Museums with an overly
strong sense of dynamism, Mies notes, distract the viewer. 7

After four decades of use, the building is in need of repair. As po-
lished plate glass is no longer manufactured in such large sizes
209
210 Lower floor plan
in Europe, damaged sections of glazing have been replaced with
smaller panes bonded together with silicon joins. The stair balus-
trades have also been modified. After objections at an early date
by the building control authorities, glass panes were inserted into
the open balustrades. A handrail was also added to one of the
open flights of stairs. Aside from necessary alterations, such as the
provision of toilets for the disabled, the building is more or less in-
tact in its original condition. The gallery is due to be refurbished
by David Chipperfield Architects.

An open hall as a space for exhibiting art is not only unusual but
can also be understood as the antithesis to the white cube. Mies
application of a building type that he originally conceived for an
office building for Bacardi in Cuba to an entirely different func-
tion provoked criticism from those who felt he raised architectur
ally motivated structural considerations over functional concerns.
The architectural historian Julius Posener remarked that the hall
is neither appropriate to its contents nor are its contents to the
hall.8 This comment was made in response to attempts to come
to terms with the openness of the space through the introduction
of a system of movable screens. Although this practice continued
for some time, the space has since been used increasingly for art
installations, reflecting the changing landscape of the art world.9
In this respect, Mies may have been right with his assertion that his
concept offered the promise of experimental freedom.10
As rational as the steel construction of the hall may appear,
it is quite irrational from the viewpoint of the structural engineer.
Stefan Polnyi describes the grid of beams, a 64-fold statically
indeterminate system calculable only with the aid of computers,
as a system inappropriate for a steel construction. He recalls:
It was difficult enough to determine the sequence in which to
conduct the welding without the welding seams themselves crea-
ting internal tension within the system. The steel plates were first
craned into place on the upper surface of the concrete base with
a smaller crane. After the complex welding procedure had been
completed, with numerous overhead welded seams, the entire
structural assembly was raised using 8masts equipped with hy-
draulic presses and then laid to rest on the columns that were
themselves brought into position during the raising process. The
flawed structural concept resulted in the need to produce welded
seams with a length of 14 km in total. 11 The positioning of the
columns at the edges of the roof slab was likewise not optimal
in structural terms compared with setting them back beneath the
roof. For Mies, however, optimal statics were of secondary im-
portance compared with the expression of architectonic clarity.
To the eye, the steel construction of the hall appears to have
a natural and legible structural logic. The tremendous difficulties
involved in developing and constructing the roof are not visible.
The building appears light and delicate and does not betray the
great effort required to achieve this impression. Because a long,
horizontal plane of this size appears optically to sag slightly in
the middle, the upper surface of the roof slab is raised by 10cm
in the centre and 5cm at the corners. The addition of a minimal
degree of curvature has been used since antiquity to create the
optical impression of straight lines in antique temples: the cur-
vature of the stylobates in the Parthenon measures 11cm over a
distance of nearly 70metres; in the Neue Nationalgalerie, 10cm
has been used for a distance of almost 65metres.
produced on a phonograph record, Mies in Berlin, Bauwelt, Berlin 1966.
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Manuscript from 19 Sep. 1960, published in:
Yilmaz Dziewior, Mies van der Rohe Blick durch den Spiegel (Mies van der
Rohe Looking Through the Mirror), Cologne 2005, p. 170.
Although Mies is describing his design for a museum in Schweinfurt, this
also applies to the Neue Nationalgalerie.
Ne u e N atio nalgaler i e 211

Exterior of the hall
212 Interior of the hall
3 Ibid.
4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in a letter to Werner Dttmann from 26
Feb. 1963, cited in: Zentralinstitut fr Kunstgeschichte (ed.), Berlins
Museen Geschichte und Zukunft (Berlins Museums History and Future
Perspectives), Berlin 1994, p. 288.
5 Cf. note 2, p. 135.
6 Cf. note 2.
7 Ibid., p. 171.
8 Julius Posener, Absolute Architektur (1973) Kritische Betrachtungen
zur Berliner Nationalgalerie, in: Aufstze und Vortrge 19311980 (Essays
and Lectures 19311980), Braunschweig, Wiesbaden 1981, p. 247.
9 A study of the use of the building is given in: Imke Woelk, Der offene
Raum: der Gebrauchswert der Halle der Neuen Nationalgalerie Berlin von
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (The Open Space. The Utility Value of the Hall
at the New National Gallery Berlin by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), Disserta-
tion TU Berlin 2010, as well as: Joachim Jger, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin
Mies van der Rohe (The New National Gallery in Berlin Mies van der
Rohe), Ostfildern 2011.
10 Mies explains: In Berlin, we split the museum building into two sec-
tions: the museum itself and the gallery spaces, except that the hall is
much larger and made of glass so that one can look out in all directions and
it establishes a connection with outdoors. [] The hall in Berlin is so large
and no doubt it will present difficulties as an exhibition space as well as for
the person organising the exhibits. That I am fully aware of, but the space
offers such great potential that I simply couldnt take these difficulties into
consideration. This quote is taken from the documentary film that Georgia
van der Rohe made about her father in 1986.
11 Stefan Polnyi, mit zaghafter Konsequenz Aufstze und Vortrge
zum Tragwerksentwurf 19611987 (... with Gentle Determination Essays
and Lectures on Structural Design 19611987), Braunschweig, Wiesbaden
1987, p. 98f.
Ground level
Stairs
Lower level Ne u e Natio nalgaler i e 213
Sculpture garden
214 Outdoor stairs
Sculpture garden Ne u e Natio nalgaler i e 215
Toronto-Dominion Centre With this urban intervention, Mies changed the centre of Toronto.
Toronto, Canada, 196369 The complex consisting of two high-rise towers and a single-storey
bank building was realised in the heart of the city by grouping to-
gether several plots. In the financial district just south of the old
town hall, buildings were demolished to create a large building
site which was formed into a single plateau. The new building vol
umes are arranged freely on this plateau without paying regard
to the historical plan of the city. As with the Neue Nationalgale-
rie in Berlin in which the incline of the site is used to conceal a
full storey, Mies created a granite-paved plinth reached by a mon
umental flight of stairs. In both projects, the plinth houses many
of the principal spaces without being visible from outside. In To-
ronto, the plinth houses an artificially illuminated shopping con-
course and a cinema. This platform in the terrain is articulated ar-
chitectonically as a mound belonging to the ground and differs
markedly in its construction and materials from the steel and glass
buildings that stand on it.
The design for what was to be the tallest building in Canada
was originally going to be undertaken by Gordon Bunshaft, but
on Phyllis Lamberts recommendation Mies was invited to con-
tribute. He ended up producing designs for the entire complex,
which was then realised in conjunction with the Canadian offices
of John B. Parkin Associates and Bregman + Hamann Architects.1
The successively completed buildings of the 56-storey Toronto
Dominion Bank Tower (1967), the single-storey customer service
hall of the bank and the 46-storey Royal Trust Tower (1969) to-
gether form a coherent ensemble which despite their asymmetric
placement relate clearly to one another. The taller of the two tow-
ers is connected by a walkway to the single-storey pavilion creating
an L-shaped figure that encloses a plaza. The connecting walkway
is, however, designed in such a way that both building volumes
retain their autonomous character and are perceived as freestand
ing objects. The two towers stand with their narrow ends facing
the customer service hall of the bank.
As with Mies other buildings, the vegetation is conceived as
part of the overall architectural composition. Together with the
landscape architect Alfred Caldwell, Mies placed trees in an asym-
metrical pattern of recesses in the paving and integrated grass
lawns into the stone plinth. As a result the urban block provides
not only a public plaza but also an abstract natural landscape.
The design of the outdoor areas is a fundamental part of the ar-
chitecture, knitting together the plinth and the pavilion that sits
on it. The result is a balanced contrast between the sculptural
mass and weight of the podium and the slender lightweight im-
pression of the wide-span steel structural frameworks that extend
high up into the sky.
As in Berlin, the two monumental service ducts in the square
hall are clad with Greek Tinos marble, and visitors familiar with
the Neue Nationalgalerie will have a dj-vu experience on en-
tering the bank. A further similarity between the buildings is the
large column-free universal space covered by a grid of steel roof
trusses. The advantage of this method, which required the utmost
precision, is the low self-weight and construction depth of the roof
structure; its disadvantage the high assembly costs, which Mies
was nevertheless willing to accept in order to achieve the desired
impression of lightness. He declared, we have steel. I think that
this is a fine material. By fine, I mean it is very strong. It is very ele-
gant. You can do a lot with it. The whole character of the building
is very light. That is why I like it when I have to build a building in
a steel construction. What I like best is when I can use stone on
the ground.2
Like Corbusier, Mies regarded the George Washington Bridge
as the best structure in New York and he was obsessed with find
ing constructions that were adequate expressions of the material
employed. Because steel is able to achieve greater floor spans, he
developed a wide-span steel structure that he continually strove
216 Floor plan of the bank building

3
Site plan
1 Royal Trust Tower
2 Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower
Detail of the faade 3 Toronto-Dominion Banking Pavilion 217
Detail of the plaza
218 Interior of the bank building
to improve. In contrast to his high-rise buildings, which in his la- 1 Phyllis Lambert, Punching Through the Clouds: Notes on the Place of
ter works were largely variations of an obligatory skeleton frame- the Toronto Dominion Centre in the North American uvre of Mies, in:
Detlef Mertins (ed.), The Presence of Mies, New York 1994, pp. 3349.
work, the column-free halls provided an opportunity to demon
2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation in 1964, in: Moiss Puente
strate new solutions. While in Crown Hall the steel members span (ed.), Conversations with Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2006, p. 72.
in one direction and the roof of the Neue Nationalgalerie rests on 3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe cited in: Only the Patient Counts Some Rad
eight articulated bearing points, the structural grid in Toronto is ical Ideas on Hospital Design, in: The Modern Hospital, 1945, pp. 6567.
rigidly welded to sixty columns around the perimeter. As in Ber-
lin, the cruciform columns are made of an assembly of four T-pro- 5 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with John Peter in 1955,
files but while the columns in Berlin bear just the structural load, transcription of the interview, pp.1415, Mies Archive, New York.
those in Toronto must also sustain the bending moment. The col
umns also hold the frames of the glazing and together with the
roof form a single framing enclosure. The abstraction of the ar-
chitecture is such that the building is perceived purely as structure.

The complex has been comprehensively renovated and upgraded
to meet modern ecological requirements without impacting on the
external appearance of the buildings. In 2012, the roof of the bank
pavilion was planted with a green roof. The numerous alterations
in the interior of the high-rise towers were foreseen as part of the
original concept. The wide column spans achieved for the tow-
ers afford particular flexibility in the layout of the interior. Chan-
ges have also been made in the subterranean levels but here too
the original character still prevails. Nevertheless, the constella-
tion of the original complex created by Mies is no longer imme-
diately recognisable as it is obscured by later buildings in its im-
mediate context.

Modern-day visitors to the Toronto-Dominion Centre, in which
over 20,000 people work, will find it hard to make out the origi-
nal buildings by Mies among the new towers that have since ari-
sen around the centre as the new buildings employ similar faade
designs. Even the design and materiality of the entrance lobbies
echoes those of the original. However, when compared with the
later additions, the two original towers are more elegantly pro-
portioned. On their long sides, the elevations have a proportion
of 1:3. While the floor plan of one building is eight bays long and
the other seven, the height difference is such that both towers
have the same proportions. Mies architectural system also em-
ploys analogous proportions at large and small scales. As such,
the windows also have a proportion of 1:3.
In retrospect it is not the structural system of the single-storey
pavilion that anticipates future developments but the vertical urban
design. While the underground shopping systems have developed
into extensive networks in many Canadian cities, the anonymous
character of high-rise offices, which for Mies represented an ideal,
now characterises cities around the world.
Our cities are monstrosities,3 said Mies, but unlike Le Corbus-
ier he was under no illusions that he could solve the urbanchaos,
as he called it, by developing plans for entire cities. I am sure
that the economic situation will have a great influence great influ-
ence on the way our cities will be. I do not believe that we archi-
tects can just plan a city out of the blue sky. There are economic
forces so strong we cannot change them. They can be guided,
that is about all.4
Mies vision of an urban landscape with a loose arrangement
of towers and pedestrian qualities at ground level has survived as
a fragment in amidst the dense accumulation of ubiquitous high-
rise tower blocks. There are, in fact, no cities any more [], he
declared prophetically given the shape of todays global urban
growth, it goes on like a forest [] that is the reason why we
cannot have the old cities any more [] that is gone forever []
planned city and so on. [] We should think about the means []
that we have to live in a jungle.5
Corner detail of the bank building T or on to - D o m in io n Cent re 219

Westmount Square As with the Federal Center in Chicago and the Dominion Centre
Montreal, Canada, 196468 in Toronto, Westmount Square is a complex of high-rise towers
grouped around a low building. Here too a pedestrianized urban
plaza has been created, with car parking relegated below ground.
The entire complex was given a uniform visual treatment with tra-
vertine paving for the floor and identical faades that group the
different buildings into an ensemble. Like the other two building
complexes, the urban configuration of the buildings contrasts
markedly with its surroundings, making it look as if it has been
implanted in the old city. In Montreal, this contrast is all the more
striking because the complex is not located in the downtown area
but at the edge of a residential quarter of predominantly small-
scale buildings.1
The architecture does, however, respond to its surrounding
context. The low building, which in this case is not a large open
hall but a two-storey office building, mediates between the high-
rise towers and the surrounding buildings. The flat volume of the
office building extends over the edge of the plinth of the plaza
on which the buildings stand, giving it the impression of having a
three-storey street frontage on the Rue Ste-Catherine matching
the height of the buildings on the opposite side of the road.
Compared with the Federal Center and the Toronto-Dominion
Centre, the spatial structure of Westmount Square is more com-
plex. A system of different stairs connects the different levels, and
the new buildings do not occupy the entire urban block as some of
the old buildings remained. Mies began with his obligatory strat
egy of creating a plinth on which the buildings can be freely ar-
ranged. The plinth houses a shopping mall that links to a metro
station and underground cinema. This mix of different functions
within a building of uniform external appearance continues in the
high-rise towers. Although the articulation of the faades is identi-
cal, one of the towers contains offices while the other is residential.
The multifunctional programme did not, however, lead to a hy-
brid building typology or to a megastructure, a concept that was
being propagated in this city at the time. At the Montreal World
Expo in 1967, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Frei Otto, Moshe Safdie
and others called for greater architectural mobility.2 Mies, how
ever, stuck to his conviction that maximum flexibility is best achie-
ved through an open floor plan with a regular grid of columns as
the only fixed points. He and his office therefore concentrated on
the proportions of the building volumes and their disposition on
the site, the detailing of the faades and the design of the pub-
lic spaces, leaving the question of their internal arrangement to a
local architectural firm.3
The units were marketed as luxury apartments with state-of-
the-art kitchens, airconditioning and a swimming pool. The upper-
most apartments have internal courtyards and the lifts transport re-
sidents directly to the underground shopping gallery with French
delis, restaurants and boutiques. In advertisements and the press,
the complex was described as a city within a city.4

At the end of the 1980s, extensive conversion measures were un-
dertaken. Glass balustrading was added to the plinth and the ori-
ginal travertine paving was replaced with granite slabs. To better
illuminate the shopping mall below, roof lights were inserted into
what were previously water basins, so that the plaza is now also
experienced as a roofscape. The black anodized aluminium ele-
ments on the facades have been painted over.

The underground shopping mall, reached via escalators and clad
entirely with Italian travertine panels, is no longer as exclusive
and luxurious as it once was. Many of the replaced paving slabs
on the plaza have since cracked and the surroundings have also
changed. The original relationship between the architecture and
220 Site plan

The plaza
Pavilion 221
High-rise towers
222 Pavilion
its surrounding environment is no longer legible as new high-rise
buildings have since been built around it. The low building there-
fore no longer serves the mediating role it used to.
The original fabric of the complex has not been cared for with
the same degree of attention as other Mies buildings, and it has
also received little attention from scholars of Mies, who have been
hesitant in attributing the project to Mies. In most books on Mies,
the complex is not mentioned and even in one of the most recent
publications, Mies role is quoted as being that of a consultant
so that the building reads today almost as a Mies knockoff.5
1 The contrast is shown clearly in: Peter Carter, Mies van der Rohe at Work,
London 1974, p. 142.
2 Cf. the chapter Megacity Montreal, in: Reyner Banham, Megastructure
Urban Futures of the Recent Past, London 1976, pp. 104127.
3 Mies cooperated here with the architecture office of Greenspoon, Freed-
lander, Dunne, Plachta and Kryton in Montreal. See: Mies in Montreal, in:
LArchitecture dAujourdhui, Paris Jan./Feb. 2004, p. 108; and Alvin Boy-
arsky, End of the Line, in: Architectural Design, vol. 3, 1970, p. 157.
4 Leo MacGillivray, Westmount Square City-in-City, in: The Montreal
Gazette, 31 Jan. 1968, p.36.
5 Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe A Critical
Biography, Chicago, London 2012, p.348.
Ensemble of high-rise buildings Wes t mo u nt Sq u are 223

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Precisely twice as long as it is deep, the building is symmetrical
Washington, D.C., USA, 196572 about its transverse axis. Visitors entering the building arrive at the
reception desk positioned exactly in the centre of the complex,
from which they can see almost the entirety of the over 100-metre-
long building. The central hall formerly provided the space for the
librarys card catalogue. The two ground-floor reading rooms with
stacks, located to the sides of the central hall, are fully glazed.
While the service rooms are arranged in four cores, the serviced
spaces are conceived as one entirely open universal space. To
the rear of the building is a delivery bay with ramp. The building
was completed after Mies death and still exists in its original con-
dition, although fundamental alterations are in discussion.1
1 A proposal for the redesign of the library by the Dutch architecture

office Mecanoo in conjunction with Martinez + Johnson was selected in
F ebruary 2014.

Corner detail
Entrance hall
Reading room 225
Museum of Fine Arts The project for the MFAH is an extension to an existing building.
Houston, Texas, USA, 195458, 196574 Mies continued the fan-shaped structure of the complex in two
separate phases, creating a curved faade that follows the path of
the road. The existing courtyard was initially the site of the size
able Cullinan Hall, completed in 1958. However this white-pain-
ted steel faade was later taken down and replaced by a second
extension, the Brown Pavilion, designed by Mies and built from
196568 after his death. Visitors reach the different open gallery
levels via a centrally placed entrance in the still curved but now
black-painted new faade. The gallery levels are each offset by half
a storey, providing diagonal views deep into the building. Through
the curved glass wall, visitors have a panoramic view northwards
of the world outside.1
1 Cf. ditions de larchitecture daujourdhui, Luvre de Mies van der

Rohe, Paris 1958, pp. 7677.
Site plan
226 Brown Wing
Exterior views of the Brown Wing 227
Nuns Island Apartments The three apartment buildings are situated on an island in the
Montreal, Canada, 196669 St. Lawrence River a short distance from the centre of Montreal.
The development of the island only began in the 1960s and Mies
was able to position his slab-like apartment buildings close to the
waters edge in a park-like landscape. Like Highfield House in Bal-
timore, the buildings are made of concrete and here too the ex-
posed loadbearing structural frame steps back slightly at intervals
towards the top of the building. This, however, was the first time
that Mies incorporated balconies into high-rise buildings. As with
the service station nearby, he cooperated with local architecture
offices.1 David Cronenberg later used the buildings as the setting
for his film Shivers.
1 The two facing buildings were built together with Edgar Tornay and the
building that stands to one side with Philip D. Bobrow.
228 Site plan showing the riverbank

North building
South building 229
IBM building For the high-rise office building overlooking the Charles River, a
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 196672 new curtain wall system was developed that in terms of appear
ance is typically Miesian but is better insulated than his previous
facades.1 Using dark anodized aluminium elements and tinted in-
sulated glass panels, the walling system incorporated a continuous
layer of insulation. A dedicated weather system on the roof was
linked to a computer-controlled air conditioning system develo-
ped by the participating engineering office, C. F. Murphy. The
rooms could be heated and cooled individually according to their
orientation and the position of the sun. Not only were the tech-
nical installations pioneering in their day, but the faade system
proved to be more reliable with respect to ongoing maintenance
than the earlier faade designs. Despite the space constraints in
downtown Chicago, the building was set back from the waterfront
to create a public space.
1 For further details on the planning of the building, see the description
by the project participant Rob Cuscaden in: The IBM Tower: 52 Stories
of Glass and Steel on Site that Seemed Almost Non-Existent, in: Inland
Architect, July 1972, p. 10.

South faade
Entrance hall 231
111 East Wacker Drive The 30-storey tower block on the Chicago River is part of an ex-
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 196770 tensive urban development project, the Illinois Central Air Rights
Development. A second tower was built from 197072 by the ar-
chitecture practice Fujikawa Conterato Lohan & Associates, the
direct successor to Mies van der Rohes office. Both towers have
a typical curtain wall faade and together form an ensemble of
buildings united by a base level containing shops that also ser-
ved as an upper pedestrianized level reached via steps. A street
even passes beneath the second of the towers. During renova-
tion works in 2011, the original surface paving was removed and
replaced with smaller-scale paving.
232 Site plan

Detail of the faade
Entrance hall 233
Service Station The building consists of different volumes covered by a sailing roof.
Montreal, Canada, 1968 Although the roof plane appears to rest on a masonry block, the
walls and roof are actually separate constructions, with the steel
roof supported by twelve columns. A glazed volume housing the
sales area and a masonry block containing the repair workshop
stand opposite one another, framing a space in-between for the
petrol pumps and the central attendants booth. The petrol sta-
tion is located on the le des Surs (Nuns Island) in the vicinity of
other buildings designed by Mies and remained in use until 2008.
The purity of its construction awakens at times associations with
Japanese temples, a view of nature opening up from beneath a
large protective roof. The petrol station has since been converted
into a community centre. While the steel roof was restored to its
original condition, the spaces beneath were adapted to suit their
new requirements.
1 The conversion was undertaken by the architect Eric Gauthier. The

original building was designed by Mies office in collaboration with the
archit ect Paul H. Lapointe. For further information, see Master Architect
Designs Unique Station in: The Montreal Gazette, 21 Sep. 1968, p. 47.
234 Floor plan

Views from the south 235
Subject Index green space, greenery
23, 50, 104, 112, 173, 174, 199
abstraction
10, 68, 72, 95, 106, 126, 139, 156, 170, 188, 197, 209, 216, 219 grid
94, 104, 106, 112, 115, 122, 126, 130, 138, 168, 188, 192, 209,
aluminium 211, 216, 219, 220
8, 82, 118, 148, 161, 162, 165, 168, 179, 180, 185, 188, 190, 194,
197, 220, 230 hall
13, 16, 18, 20, 25, 39, 41, 45, 62, 63, 68, 82, 84, 90, 96, 98, 101,
brick 112, 115, 117, 128, 130, 131, 132, 136, 137, 139, 188, 190, 192,
10, 28, 37, 39, 45, 48, 50, 54, 56, 57, 64, 66, 68, 72, 80, 81, 90, 96, 194, 199, 202, 206, 209, 211, 213, 216, 219, 220, 224, 231, 233
101, 106, 110, 111, 118, 120, 121, 124, 126, 127, 136, 138, 148
landscape
brick bond, masonry bond 10, 20, 28, 37, 45, 50, 56, 58, 64, 68, 80, 82, 84, 90, 94, 96, 104,
37, 45, 48, 52, 55, 56, 57, 68, 72, 90, 96106, 127, 138, 148 142, 148, 160, 173, 174, 197, 204, 216, 219, 228
cladding, facing, panelling light

16, 18, 45, 48, 60, 68, 72, 94, 96, 101, 106, 111, 120, 121, 127, 9, 10, 16, 40, 50, 68, 72, 80, 84, 90, 130, 132, 168, 170, 173, 197,
136, 137, 138, 142, 148, 168, 188, 197 199, 204
colour module
23, 50, 55, 63, 76, 80, 82, 84, 121, 142, 146, 148, 174, 185, 188, 50, 104, 112, 115, 126, 130, 138, 168
190, 197
monument
concrete 8, 25, 28, 35, 43, 45, 57, 58, 82, 124, 162, 168, 170, 209, 216
10, 41, 50, 70, 82, 108, 112, 113, 114, 117, 119, 122, 123, 126,
129, 132, 136, 140, 150, 152, 154, 158, 160, 163, 164, 182, 184, movement
189, 192, 196, 199, 201, 206, 230 20, 23, 27, 56, 60, 68, 76, 93, 106, 110, 118, 132, 156, 211
context panorama, panoramic view

8, 9, 58, 62, 80, 82, 96, 101, 104, 146, 153, 179, 209, 219, 220 16, 20, 23, 56, 58, 82, 96, 148, 165, 174, 226
core plinth
9, 35, 41,60, 115, 137, 143, 156, 160, 162, 179, 182, 188, 192, 16, 27, 33, 45, 48, 50, 58, 90, 104, 110, 115, 122, 124, 127, 146,
197, 202, 224 168, 179, 180, 197, 209, 216, 220
corner podium
20, 23, 25, 37, 42, 48, 50, 56, 58, 63, 68, 76, 80, 90, 93, 94, 96, 23, 28, 33, 45, 76, 160, 168, 194, 204, 209, 216
106, 108, 111, 114, 115, 117, 118, 122, 124, 134, 138, 141, 142,
146, 151, 158, 168, 169, 177, 183, 185, 194, 197, 211, 219, 225 proportion
10, 13, 18, 20, 23, 30, 32, 35, 41, 43, 45, 50, 54, 90, 93, 104, 106,
detailing 111, 113, 115, 124, 180, 188, 194, 197, 219, 220
10, 23, 25, 28, 48, 49, 50, 55, 61, 68, 84, 90, 95, 110, 115, 118,
120, 122, 124, 134, 136, 146, 148, 153, 158, 159, 161, 162, 180, reconstruction
185, 187, 192, 209, 220 10, 18, 20, 30, 32, 33, 43, 55, 60, 64, 76, 80, 84, 94, 95, 101, 118
exhibition, exposition renovation, conversion, alteration

13, 25, 58, 60, 62, 63, 64, 72, 76, 80, 81, 84, 90, 94, 130, 133, 168, 10, 18, 20, 22, 27, 28, 37, 40, 43, 48, 49, 55, 60, 64, 66, 72, 80,
193, 199, 209, 211, 213 84, 93, 96, 101, 110, 117, 124, 132, 134, 146, 148, 153, 156, 158,
160, 162, 168, 170, 174, 180, 185, 190, 199, 209, 211, 219, 220,
flexibility 224 232
58, 104, 117, 132, 156, 219, 220
rhythm
function 50, 58, 90, 104, 132, 158, 173
16, 18, 23, 25, 37, 55, 61, 86, 93, 106, 117, 126, 132, 168, 188,
211, 220 sculpture
20, 23, 27, 56, 58, 68, 72, 76, 77, 84, 94, 153, 162, 190, 209, 214,
furnishing, furniture 215, 216
10, 16, 58, 62, 82, 84, 132, 153
armchairs: 62, 82; chairs: 16, 76, 82; cupboards: 45, 72, 142, silk
146, 148, 199; tables: 16, 23, 62, 76, 82, 132 63, 68,82, 84, 90, 93, 124, 142
gesture skeleton frame construction

16, 18, 28, 30, 55, 64, 82, 84 10, 58, 80, 81, 90, 115, 121, 138, 148, 156, 168, 190, 197, 219
236
spatial arrangement, concept, constellation Illustration Credits
9, 18, 23, 27, 39, 48, 50, 60, 63, 64, 72, 76, 82, 86, 93, 96, 123, All photographs and drawings by Carsten Krohn
124, 130, 140, 158, 180, 188, 220
spatial continuum, sequence of spaces

25, 62, 64, 84, 124, 153
stairs
10, 16, 18, 20, 29, 30, 33, 34, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 50, 55,
60, 72, 76, 80, 82, 90, 92, 93, 101, 110, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121,
130, 131, 132, 134, 136, 146, 148, 153, 179, 182, 185, 192, 202,
203, 208, 209, 211, 213, 214, 216, 220
steel construction
43, 58, 60, 68, 72, 76, 80, 82, 90, 95, 106, 110, 112, 115, 118,
120, 121, 126, 130, 132, 137, 139, 142, 146, 150, 151, 156, 158,
159, 162, 168, 182, 188, 190, 192, 199, 202, 211, 216, 219, 226,
230, 234
stone
10, 57, 64, 76, 80, 84, 121, 160, 197, 199, 209, 216
granite: 168, 188, 190, 192, 209, 216, 220; marble: 18, 45, 76,
80, 130, 162,168, 209, 216; onyx: 76, 80, 82, 84; shell lime-
stone: 35; travertine: 33, 45, 72, 76, 80, 84, 88, 124, 130, 142,
146, 156, 162, 182, 197, 220
supporting structure, load-bearing structure

10, 18, 23, 45, 58, 60, 68, 72, 81, 82, 94, 106, 111, 115, 120, 130,
132, 138, 142, 165, 169, 190, 202, 209, 219, 228, 234
tectonics
8, 18, 23, 72, 80, 82, 86, 93, 96, 132, 146, 148, 156
terrace
16, 20, 28, 33, 39, 40, 42, 45, 48, 56, 58, 64, 68, 82, 86, 87, 88,
96, 173, 174, 187
topography
18, 28, 30, 33, 58, 146, 179, 180, 197
type, typology
16, 18, 30, 35, 45, 90, 106, 110, 132, 148, 168, 173, 202, 209, 220
unity, entity
23, 30, 80, 104, 120, 133, 146, 168, 209, 58, 72, 80, 156
urban planning
13, 50, 58, 93, 104, 126, 138, 140, 162, 168, 173, 174, 179, 180,
187, 188, 190, 216, 219, 220, 232
view (to the exterior)

16, 20, 23, 25, 28, 32, 37, 42, 45, 56, 59, 68, 82, 84, 96, 101, 130,
142, 146, 148, 156, 158, 165, 173, 174, 179, 197, 206, 226, 234
visual axis
20, 32, 37, 39, 41, 45, 96, 104, 146, 173, 224
volume
27, 28, 37, 41, 50, 58, 68, 72, 90, 93, 96, 104, 106, 115, 118, 126,
139, 140, 146, 156, 162, 168, 173, 185, 204, 206, 216, 220, 234
water
25, 27, 28, 45, 76, 81, 96, 101, 142, 209, 220, 228, 230
237
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London, New York 1986
Max Bill, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Milan 1955
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Ludwig Hilberseimer, Mies van der Rohe, Chicago 1956
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Rolf Achilles, Kevin Harrington and Charlotte Myhrum (eds.), Mies
Arthur Drexler, Mies van der Rohe, New York 1960 van der Rohe Architect as Educator, Chicago 1986
Werner Blaser, Mies van der Rohe The Art of Structure, London John Zukowsky (ed.), Mies Reconsidered His Career, Legacy and
1965 Disciples, New York 1986
James Speyer, Mies van der Rohe, Chicago 1968 Ajuntament de Barcelona, El Pavell Alemany de Barcelona de
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Pavilion, Barcelona 1975 wicklung der Wohnarchitektur, Stuttgart 1990
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Phyllis Lambert (ed.), Mies in America, Montreal, New York 2001
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Leo Schmidt (ed.), The Wolf House Project. Traces, Spuren, Slady, Interiors, Furniture, Photography, Ostfildern 2008
Cottbus 2001
Sven-Olov Wallenstein, The Silence of Mies, Stockholm 2008
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Concert Hall zur Neuen Nationalgalerie, Potsdam 2001 Claudia Hain, Villa Urbig 19151917 Zur Geschichte und Archi-
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Rohe am Bauhaus 19301933, Berlin 2001
Christiane Lange, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Architektur fr die
Thilo Hilpert (ed.), Mies van der Rohe im Nachkriegsdeutschland Seidenindustrie, Berlin 2011
Das Theaterprojekt Mannheim 1953, Leipzig 2001
Joachim Jger, Neue Nationalgalerie Mies van der Rohe,
Werner Blaser, Mies van der Rohe llT Campus, Basel, Berlin, Ostfildern 2011
Boston 2002
Christophe Girot (ed.), Mies als Grtner, Zurich 2011
Max Stemshorn, Mies und Schinkel Das Vorbild Schinkels im Werk
Mies van der Rohes, Tbingen, Berlin 2002 David idlick, Villa Tugendhat Rehabilitation and Ceremonial
Reopening, Brno 2012
Aurora Cuito, Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona 2002
Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani (eds.), Thanks
Maritz Vandenberg, Farnsworth House Ludwig Mies van der for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit, Detroit 2012
Rohe, London 2003
Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, Mies van der Rohe A Cri-
Werner Blaser, Mies van der Rohe Crown Hall, Basel, Berlin, tical Biography, New and Revised Edition, Chicago, London 2012
Boston 2004
Kerstin Plm (ed.), Mies van der Rohe im Diskurs Innovationen,
Charles Waldheim (ed.), CASE: Hilberseimer/Mies van der Rohe, Haltungen, Werke, Aktuelle Positionen, Bielefeld 2013
Lafayette Park, Detroit, Munich, Berlin, London, New York 2004
Mario Ferrari and Laura Pavia, Mies van der Rohe Neue Natio-
Werner Blaser, Mies van der Rohe Federal Center Chicago, Basel, nalgalerie in Berlin 19621968, Bari 2013
Berlin, Boston 2004
Phyllis Lambert, Building Seagram, New Haven, London 2013
Johannes Cramer and Dorothe Sack (eds.), Mies van der Rohe:
Frhe Bauten Probleme der Erhaltung, Probleme der Bewer- Detlef Mertins, Mies The Art of Living, London 2014
tung, Petersberg 2004
Enrique Coloms and Gonzalo Moure, Mies van der Rohe V

elvet
and Silk Space in Berlin, Madrid 2004
Kent Kleinman and Leslie Van Duzer, Mies van der Rohe The
Krefeld Villas, Princeton 2005
Yilmaz Dziwior, Mies van der Rohe Blick durch den Spiegel,
Cologne 2005
George Dodds, Building Desire On the Barcelona Pavilion, New

York 2005
Claire Zimmermann, Mies van der Rohe 18861969, Cologne

2006
239
About the Author
Carsten Krohn studied architecture, art history and urban planning

at the Academy of Fine Arts and the university in Hamburg and
at Columbia University, New York. He published his Ph.D thesis
on the reception of Buckminster Fuller among architects. He has
worked with the architectural firm of Norman Foster and as an as-
sistant professor at the University of Karlsruhe. He also taught at
the Humboldt-University and Technical University, both in Berlin.
In 2010 he curated the exhibition The Unbuilt Berlin.
240

Mies Van Der Rohe The Built Works

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Mies Van Der Rohe The Built Works

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Mies Van der Rohe

the built work

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Bibliographic information published by the German National Lib

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether

This book is also available in a German language edition

2014 Birkhuser Verlag GmbH, Basel

Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF

We kindly thank FSB Franz Schneider Brakel GmbH + Co KG for

24 Krller-Mller House, Faade Mock-up

35 Tombstone for Laura Perls

43 Gymnasium for Frau Buttes Private School

49 Urban House, Conversion

50 Housing on the Afrikanische Strae

57 Monument to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg

58 Weienhofsiedlung Apartment Block

63 Samt und Seide Caf (Velvet and Silk Caf)

64 Fuchs Gallery, Addition to the Perls House

76 Barcelona Pavilion 134 IIT Halls of Residence

82 Tugendhat House 137 Commons Building

88 Henke House, Addition 138 Electrical Engineering and Physics Building

89 Verseidag Factory 139 Association of American Railroads Engineering Laboratory

95 Trinkhalle (Refreshment Stand) 142 Farnsworth House

96 Lemke House 148 Promontory Apartments

102 Illinois Institute of Technology 152 Algonquin Apartments

111 Engineering Research Building 154 860880 Lake Shore Drive

112 Perlstein Hall 159 McCormick House

114 Alumni Memorial Hall 160 Greenwald House

118 Wishnick Hall 161 Commonwealth Promenade Apartments

120 Central Vault 162 Esplanade Apartments

121 Institute of Gas Technology Building 166 Seagram Building

122 Association of American Railroads Research Laboratory 172 Lafayette Park

123 Boiler Plant 178 Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments

124 Chapel 182 Bacardi Office Building

126 Test Cell 184 One Charles Center

127 Mechanics Research Building 186 Lafayette Towers

192 Home Federal Savings and Loan Association

194 2400 Lakeview

196 Highfield House

202 Social Service Administration

204 Meredith Hall

206 Science Center

208 Neue Nationalgalerie

216 Toronto-Dominion Centre

220 Westmount Square

224 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library

226 Museum of Fine Arts

228 Nuns Island Apartments

230 IBM Building

232 111 East Wacker Drive

234 Service Station

236 Subject Index

238 Chronological Bibliography

When asked which of his buildings he felt was most important,

Peter Behrens, Krller-Mller House,

16 Ground floor plan

Later alterations to the building

First floor plan

The building as seen from the present

Later alterations to the building

The building as seen from the present