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MIES VEN DER ROHE

Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)


Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (March 27, 1886 August 19, 1969) was the leading architect of the modernist style. -Born in Aachen, Germany in 1886 . - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect, the leading and most influential exponent of the glass and steel architecture of the 20th-century International Style. -Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. He created an influential Twentieth Century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity and simplicity. -His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define austere but elegant spaces.`

-He began his architectural career as an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens from 1908 - 1912, where he was exposed to the current design theories and to progressive German culture. -He began his independent professional career designing upper class homes in traditional Germanic domestic styles. -He admired the broad proportions and cubic volumes of early nineteenth century Prussian Neo-Classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, while dismissing the eclectic and cluttered classical of the turn of the century. -But after World War I, Mies began to turn away from traditional styles, and joined his avant-garde peers in the search for a new style for a new era. -He was influenced by the aesthetic credos of both Russian Constructivism and the Dutch De Stijl group, - He was impressed by the Prairie Style work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

-He joined the faculty of the Bauhaus school, teaching architecture. - He designed modernist furniture pieces that have become popular classics, such as the Barcelona chair and table, and the -Mies adopted an ambitious lifelong mission to create not only a Brno chair. new style, but also a new architecture that would represent a new epoch just as Gothic architecture did for the middle ages. -In the 1930s Mies served as the last Director of the faltering Bauhaus, at the request of his friend and competitor Walter Gropius. -His reputation as a pioneer of modern architecture was already established by American promoters of the international style.

THE FRANSWORTH HOUSE In the late 1940s, Mies van der rohe continued to develop his steel-and-glass vocabulary. During this era he designed one of his most famous buildings, a small weekend retreat outside chicago , for chicago physician Edith Farnsworth. A transparent box framed by eight exterior steel columns, the farnsworth house is one of the most radically minimalist houses ever designed and it has been called an icon of international style modernism its completely enclosed in glass continuous visual space is the essence of the house . Eight steel columns form the structure, with interior and exterior floors of roman travertine marble. The interior is totally open except for an interior rectangular structure containing two

THE FRANSWORTHH OUSE

THE SEAGRAM BUILDING The Seagram building was planned for the Seagram's distillery company. This 160 m tall building was a further development of mies's project from the 1951 lake shore drive apartments in chicago and was immediately hailed with critical acclaim. The building is placed to the "rear" portion of the endof-block site, off the park avenue. Amid the bustle of midtown Manhattan, mies separated his architecture from the city, the tower from the avenue by a pink travertine-clad open plaza with twin fountain pools flanked by tree For the buildings exteriors, mies used unusually luxurious materials: dark bronze-tinted glass panels held in place, by bronze I-profiled beams attached to the mullions

This urban sophistication and material refinement established the Seagram building as a masterpiece of skyscraper design.

Seagram building, New York (19541958), 1958 Ludwig mies van der rohe

view of the plaza from the lobby of the Seagram building, New York (19541958), 1958

Mies included external I-beams that were not structurally necessary but that "expressed" the structure, touching off a conversation about whether Mies had or had not committed the crime of ornamentation Philip Johnson had a role in designing the plaza and the Four Seasons restaurant. The Seagram Building is said to also be the first major "fast-track" construction process, when design and construction are done concurrently.

Interior of Neue Nationalgalerie museum in Berlin, Germany

THE TUGENDHAT HOUSE


The Tugendhat Villa in Brno, Czech Republic, was in 2002 declared a World Heritage of The Tugendhat House is one Site by UNESCO. the best buildings. With its floor-to-soffit glazing that electronically slid into the walls below to the key entertaining spaces, its beautiful use of materials and tightly-controlled plan the house is a joy. The red onyx wall is orientated orthogonally but also with an eye to the sunsets: it glows a deep red color with speckles of black and white where the onyx contains other stones and small holes.

- The barcelona pavilion was designed by mies van de rohe as the german national pavilion for the 1929 barcelona international exhibition, held on montjuc ceremonial hall (for which he also designed the famous chrome and leather 'barcelona chair'), had a flat roof supported on chrome columns . -The steel skeleton and the pavilions walls, rectangular planes of marble, glass, onyx placed vertically or horizontally, could be freely positioned and made it possible that space seems to flow through them.

The reconstructed German Pavilion in Barcelona

ABOUT WORK..

-He worked personally and intensively on prototype solutions, and then allowed his students, both in school and his office, to develop derivative solutions for specific projects under his guidance. -Famous for his poetic aphorisms "Less is More" and "God is in the details", -Mies sought to create clear, simple and ordered spaces through an architecture based on exposing the inherent qualities of materials and the expression of structural frameworks. -Over the last twenty years of his life, Mies achieved his vision of a monumental "skin and bones" architecture that reflected his goal to symbolize the modern era. -Mies placed great importance on education of architects who could carry on his design principles

-His own practice was based on intensive personal involvement in design efforts to create prototype solutions for building types then allowing his studio designers to develop derivative buildings under his supervision. -while Mies' work had enormous influence and critical recognition, his approach was eclipsed by the new wave of Post Modernism by the 1980's. - He had hoped his architecture would serve as a universal model that could be easily imitated, but the aesthetic power of his best buildings proved impossible to match, instead resulting mostly in drab and uninspired structures.

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