“REASON IS THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF

ALL HUMAN WORK”

“TRUTH IS IN THE SIGNIFCANCE OF FACTS”

“LESS IS MORE”
 Drawing by Kevin S. and Mike M.

Maria Ludwig Michael Mies was born in 1886 in Aachen,

Germany..
•Trained with his father- a master stonemason.

•At 19 moved to Berlin, worked for Bruno Paul, the art nouveau architect
and furniture designer.
20 -received his first independent commission, to plan a house for a
philosopher

•1908- began working for the architect peter Behrens, studied the
architecture of the Prussian Karl friedrich schinkel and frank
Lloyd Wright.

•1912- opened his own office in Berlin

•After world war I, began to design skyscrapers

•1921 -friedrichstrasse skyscraper, for a competition, never built,

•1921, changed his name, adding the Dutch 'van der' and his mother’s
maiden name, 'rohe': ludwig mies became
ludwig mies van der rohe.
•1927- the barcelona pavilion

•30s, none of his designs were built due to the sweeping economic and political
changes overtaking germany.

•1930 -1933- Director of the bauhaus school

•1937- Moved to the united states in.

•1938 -1958 -head of the architecture department at the armour institute of

technology in Chicago, later renamed the illinois institute of technology.
•
1944, he had become an American citizen and became established professionally.
‘Farnsworth house’

•1954 -the 'seagram' building

•1959 the 'orden pour le merite' (germany) and in

•1963 the 'presidential medal of freedom' (USA).

•1960-Recipient of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal,.

•Died in chicago on august 17, 1969.

 "architektur beginnt, wenn zwei Backsteine sorgfältig
zusammengesetzt werden. architektur ist eine sprache mit der
disziplin einer grammatik, man kann sprache im alltag als prosa
benutzen, und wenn man sehr gut ist, kann man ein dichter sein."

badly van the raw

"architecture begins, if two bricks are built

up carefully architecture are a language with the
discipline of a grammar, one can language in the
everyday life as prosa use, and if one is very good,
can one a poet be.“

Mies van der Rohe

 WHAT DID THIS ARCHITECT DESIGN?

BUILDINGS PLACE YEAR

1 Barcelona Pavilion Barcelona, Spain 1928-1929

2 Crown Hall Chicago, Illinois 1950 - 1956

3 Farnsworth House Plano, Illinois, 1946 - 1950.

4 H. Lange House Krefeld, Germany, 1928

5 Lake Shore Drive Apts Chicago, Illinois, 1948 - 1951

6 New National Gallery Berlin, Germany,. 1962 - 1968

7 Seagram Building New York, New York, 1954 - 1958

8 Tugendhat House Brno, Czech Republic 1930

Recipient of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, 1960.

WHAT MADE VAN DER ROHE UNIQUE?
•Mies van der Rohe designed buildings using both
classical and simple forms.

•His early works showcased glass a lot, because he liked

the look of glass. Glass, stone, water, and steel
are frequently used in his work. He also used a
lot of symmetry.

•He paid a lot of attention to the details of his work.

"God is in the details,"

•He also liked to say,

"I need to bring nature, man, and architecture together

to design a good building."
 BARCELONA PAVILION

Location Barcelona, Spain

Date built 1928-1929, demolished 1930

Building Type exhibition building
Construction System steel frame with glass and polished
stone

Climate mediterranean

Context urban exposition site

Style Modern

Notes An Icon of the Modern movement.

free plan exemplar. Rebuilt in 1959
to the original design.
CROWN HALL

Location Chicago, Illinois

Date 1950 to 1956

Building Type architecture school

Construction System steel and glass

Climate temperate

Context campus

Style Modern

Notes At the Illinois Institute of

Technology. exposed, expressed steel
frame, roof suspended from spanning
I-beams.
FARNSWORTH HOUSE

Location Plano, Illinois

Date 1946 to 1950

Building Type house

Construction System steel frame with glass

Climate temperate

Context rural

Style Modern

Notes International Style exemplar;

glass and steel house hovers
in meadow
NEW NATIONAL GALLERY

Location Berlin, Germany

Date 1962 to 1968

Building Type Exhibition building

Construction System steel frame with coffered rib

roof

Climate temperate

Context urban

Style Modern

Notes grid structural plan, "free plan"

interior, continuous space
 SEAGRAM BUILDING

Location New York

Date 1954 to 1958

Building Type skyscraper, commercial office tower

Construction System steel frame with curtain wall, bronze

exterior "columns"

Climate temperate

Context urban

Style Modern

Notes Eloquent structural expression in

facade which is ornamental rather
than literal.
WEISSENHOF APARTMENTS

Location Stuttgart, Germany

Date 1927

Building Type apartment housing

Construction System stucco exterior

Climate temperate

Context suburban

Style Modern

Notes Prototype low-cost apartments

in the International Style
NEW NATIONAL GALLERY
SEAGRAM BUILDING
CROWN HALL

MIES OVER MODEL OF CROWN HALL

 BARCELONA PAVILION

Built in 1886-1969 as the German national pavilion for the 1929

Barcelona International Exhibition.
Materials Used
Glass, travertine and different kinds of marble.
The Pavilion was conceived to accommodate the official
reception presided over by King Alphonso XIII of Spain
along with the German authorities.

After the closure of the Exhibition, the Pavilion was

disassembled in 1930.
PLAN
RECONSTRUCTION

Work began in 1983 and the new building was opened on its original
site in 1986.

The materials
Glass, steel and four different kinds of marble
(Roman travertine, green Alpine marble, ancient green marble from
Greece and golden onyx from the Atlas Mountains) were used for the
reconstruction, all of the same characteristics and provenance as the
ones originally employed by Mies in 1929.
FARNSWORTH HOUSE

Structure - precast concrete floor and roof slabs supported by

crafted steel skeleton frame of beams, girders and
columns.
Facade - single panes of glass spanning from floor to
ceiling, fastened to the structural system by steel
mullions.
GENERAL VIEWS
CONSTRUCTION IMAGES

INTERIOR VIEWS
DECK

STAIRS
 BEAM AND COLUMN CONNECTIONS

CORNER DETAILS
 West Elevation with Details
Site Plan

South Elevation

First Floor Plan

Longitudinal Section - Nort

Heating System Plan

Transverse Section - West

Rendered Elevation
Transverse Section - East
FURNITURES
 List of winners
European Union Prize for Contemporary
Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award
2003 2002

Car Park and Terminus Scharnhauser Park Town Hall

Hoenheim North Ostfildern, Germany
Estrasburg, France Jürgen Mayer H.
Zaha Hadid
2000
2001

Kursaal Centre Kaufmann Holz AG Distribution Centre

San Sebastián, Spain Bobingen, Germany
Rafael Moneo Florian Nagler
BOOKS ON MIES VAN DER ROHE

Mies van der Rohe at Work

By Peter Carter, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
1999

The Master Builders : Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe,

Frank Lloyd Wright
By Peter Blake, 1996

Mies van der Rohe

By Werner Blaser, 1997
Mies van der Rohe, Lake Shore Drive Apartments :
High-Rise Building/ Wohnhochhaus
By Werner Blaser, 1999

Mies van der Rohe : A Critical

Biography By Franz Schulze, 1995

Mies van der Rohe : Stuttgart, Barcelona and

Brno Furniture and Architecture
By Otakar
THANK YOU