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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was a german born educator and architect, who dened modern architecture by emphasizing open space and reinventing the form and constructing materials of buildings. Born in Aachen, Germany, on March 27, 1886, Mies spent the rst half of his career in his native country. Between 1897 and 1900 he attended the Cathedral School. After training with his father, a master stones man, he moved to Berlin at the age on 19, and became an apprentice in the ofce of Bruno Paul, and art nouveau architect, and furniture designer, at the same time as Gropius was a senior assistant. In 1907, he built the Riehl House as an independent architect. It was a wooden house in eighteenth-century style under the inuence of English domestic architecture. In 1908 he joined Peter Behrens at his studio, which was a successful artist, graphic designer and architect. By that time he designed his most famous AEG Turbine Factory, being one of the rst artists to embrace industrialization as a way to provide well designed products, and offer them to the masses.

By 1912 he founded his own studio as an independent architect in Berlin. In 1913 he got married, and remained there till 1914 when he entered military service. In the 1920s he became active in some of the Berlin avant-garde circles. He was a member of the Novembergruppe and served as its director of architectural exhibits until 1925. Mies also became a member of Zehner Ring, that supported modern art and architecture along with other artists like: Hans Richter, El Lissitzky and Theo van Doesburg. From 1926 to 1932, Mies was named the rst vice-president of the Deutscher Werkbund. In 1921 when his marriage ended, he changed his name, adding the Dutch van der and his mothers maiden name, Rohe, after which Ludwig Mies became Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Same year, a competition was held for the design of a skyscraper on the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin. Mies 's proposed scheme was in the form of three prismatic towers. The exterior was sheathed with glass. Besides breaking some rules dictated in the guideline, it was a radical and unimaginable concept. It was one of his rst projects that generated a lot of attention and a lot of criticism. The plan of Friedrichstrasse remained just a study, without solution for its structure. The project was just known from models, drawings, and sketches, but a couple of decades later, his design would be used in most corporate architecture.

In 1927 Mies van der Rohe was designated director and designer of the Werkbund Exposition, "The Weissenhofsiedlung," set on a hill overlooking Stuttgart. Sixteen most famous European architects, including Le Corbusier, Peter Behrens, Richard Docker, Hans Pelzig, Hans Scharoun, and Walter Gropius were invited to design and build 21 white houses. The houses were of the very latest design, using the most recently developed materials. This was the rst housing project to be built in Europe using designs that were the last word in modernity - at roofs and cubic forms. Glass and concrete were the main construction materials. By 1927 Marcel Breuer had already designed the famous Wassily chair, the rst tubular chair, which marked a shift to modern furniture design. Soon after that, Mies crated the MR Chair, by reducing the chair to its main parts, which came out to be of a cantilever form. The same year, he designed the MR Lounge Chair, which is also made of tubular stainless steel, and has a cantilever frame. He took example from the iron rocking chairs, which were fashionable in the 19th century in Europe, and reduced it to a minimalistic standard.

By 1928 Mies was appointed Director of the German Section of the International Exposition in Barcelona, because the Weimar Republic wished to present itself as progressive. It was opened in the presence of the Spanish King Alfonso XIII and the royal family. Here, Mies used sophisticated materials with a uid open plan, which, together, provided the space with an unexampled modern elegance. The building was balanced with a pool and a sculpture by Georg Kolb. He became well known for the glass and steel Skin and Bones clarity that Barcelona Pavilion expressed, as well as the belief that space must be made universal and exible. The Barcelona Pavilion housed the rst Barcelona chair, which was designed for the pavilion, originally in white leather. Like the MR chair, it is composed of steel and leather. By 1930, the building was demolished, and was known just from photographs, until 1980 when it was reconstructed in Barcelona.

In 1930 he designed the Tugendhat house in Brno, Czechoslovakia. The building is a luxurious two-story plan, which can be entered from the street and the upper level. The free owing space and dinning areas give the house much of its quality. The use of the exterior terraces on both levels was compared to Le Corbusiers Villa Stain. The individual spaces built, could be shut off using draperies on ceiling tracks. This design, inspired Van der Rohe to design some of his most famous pieces of furniture, including the Brno Chair, the Tugendhat chair, and the X table. In 1930, Gropius recommended Mies van der Rohe as successor to Hannes Meyer who had taken over Walter Gropius as director of the Dessau Bauhaus. Mies focused the curriculum on architecture and interior design, with more intensity than for other subjects. When the Dessau Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, Mies van der Rohe moved it to Berlin in 1933, but on August 10, after 15 years of operation, the school was closed by the Nazi regime, because it didnt suit the nationalistic taste of German leaders. Same year, Miess work was on display in The Modern Architecture-International Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. It was at this exhibition that the term International Style was born.

In 1937 he visited Chicago, as he was asked to be the director on the Armour Institute, which was founded in 1890. He immigrated there in 1938. From the beginning he insisted on an old fashioned approach of teaching architecture. The student must learn to draw rst, than gain knowledge of the features and use of materials, and later, master the principles of design and construction. In 1940, the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute came to form Illinois Institute of Technology. The original building could not accommodate all the schools needs, and Mies was asked to develop plans for a new expansion. His proposed layout was of more traditional buildings grouped around an open space but in his nal plan he took in consideration Chicagos street grid, and designed two symmetrical groups of buildings. They characterized 20th century buildings: steel and concrete frames, with curtain walls of brick and glass, which was a reection of universitys technological focus. The rst building, Minerals and Metals Building, was widely criticized, mainly because it was built of steel and glass, during the WWII. As his rst American building, is found to have many similarities to the Bauhaus in Dessau.

The fth structure built on the campus was the Wishnick Hall, which was mainly a Chemistry Building, which from outside is similar to Perlstein Halls and Alumni Memorial, for the use of repeated modular bays as the basic building blocks. The Lake Shore Apartments in Chicago (1948-1951), was Miess rst high-rise building, as well as the rst building to exhibit its construction materials. Concrete, beams and columns were left in plain sight. The vertical windows and columns emphasize tallness. For the living spaces above, the openness seizes the lake views, and at the pedestrian level, the open plan creates a ow of natural green space. In 1946 Dr. Edith Farnsworth, commissioned a house from Mies for weekend and vacation use, on the Fox River, Illinois. The house is a simple glass, which is supposed to minimize the boundary between man and nature. The exterior columns make the roof and platform appear to oat above the site. In 1975 the house was sold to a British Lord, after living there periodically for several decades. In 2003, Landmarks Preservation of Illinois and the National Trust purchased the house for $6.7 million, as one of most acclaimed 20th century structures.

In 1949 Mies was asked to build the Chapel of St. Savior on the campus of IIT. The chapel was supposed to be for students of all faiths, a place for contemplation about God, as after the war, the relation between religion and science was shattered. The nal design was referred to as the God box. Unlike his usual buildings, the walls are constructed of blonde bricks, which support a small building. According to Mies, the simple walls were intended to make you look upwards, making the Chapel a space for contemplation. In 1950 he continued expanding IITs campus, by designing the Crown Hall. It is considered one of his masterpieces, which inspired students and architects. With the low rise and steel frames, the translucent glass at oor-level and the clearer glass higher up, Mies van der Rohe succeeded in creating a universal space. In 1954, the construction of the Seagram building on Park Avenue in NYC started. The building was set back 90 feet from Park avenue, as he observed a tendency in skyscrapers recessing or being set back as they rose. It rises to 39 levels. The plaza on Park Avenue, raised from the street, consists of simple stone paving, and it features a monumental sculpture by Alexander Calder.

In 1958 Van der Rohe retires from IIT, as he had less time to run the school. In 1959 he took on the proposal to design the Chicago Federal Center, but the building wasnt completed until 1973, and it a lot of changes were made in the process, as it wasnt considered to symbolize the government. Same year, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, as well as the AIA Gold Medal in 1960. In 1962, he was called to design the New National Gallery in Berlin. The roof structure and supports are the main features of the building. The exterior columns were carefully designed, standing in front of an all-glass wall. The gallery was completed on year before he dies. In 1963 Mies was the rst architect to receive the American Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1969, Mies designed the Toronto Dominion Center, which consists of two towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black painted steel. It is another example, as well as Seagram building, of his unique takes on the International style.

On August 17, 1969, after a long illness, Mies van der Rohe died in Chicago at the age of 83. Mies van der Rohes focus was to design styles that reected a more modern and industrialized time. As Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, he was regarded as one of the revolutionary architects of the 20th century. His quote Less is more perfectly characterizes his building designs as well as furniture. He promoted purity through the emphasis of natural light.

I dont want to be interesting. I want to be good. - Mies van der Rohe

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