Personal information
Name
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Nationality
German/American

Birth date
March 27, 1886(1886-03-27)

Birth place
Aachen

Date of death
August 17, 1969 (aged 83)

Place of death
Chicago


Biography

Was born in aachen, germany, on march 27, 1886. after having trained with his father, a master stonemason. At 19 he moved to berlin, where he worked for bruno paul,the art nouveau architect and furniture designer. At 20 he received his first independent commission, to plan a house for a philosopher (alois riehl).

The architect and designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is one of the best-known exponents of International Style modernism. His "less-is-more" philosophy has become a catchphrase for much twentieth-century design, though a preference for luxurious and costly materials often underscores the deceptive simplicity of his elegant and refined designs. Mies van der Rohe's early architectural career in Berlin included training in the office of Bruno Paul from 1905 until 1907 and in the office of Peter Behrens from 1908 until 1911 (where his co-workers included Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius). he studied the architecture of the prussian karl friedrich schinkel and frank lloyd wright.he opened his own office in berlin in 1912, and married in 1913.
He opened his own practice in Berlin in 1913 and soon developed a personal architectural idiom that combined the cool rationalism of the nineteenth-century German architect Karl Friederich Schinkel with the pure formalism of the International Style. After world war I, he began studying the skyscraper and designed two innovative steel-framed towers encased in glass. one of them was the friedrichstrasse skyscraper, designed in 1921 for a competition. it was never built, although it drew critical praise and foreshadowed his skyscraper designs of the late 40s and 50s.in 1921, when his marriage ended, he changed his name, adding the dutch 'van der' and his mother’s maiden name, 'rohe': ludwig mies became Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.in the 20’s he was active in a number of the berlin avant-garde circles ( the magazine 'G' and organizations such as the 'novembergruppe', 'zehner ring', and 'arbeitsrat für kunst')that supported modern art and architecture along with artists like hans richter, el lissitzky, and theo van doesburg, among others. From 1926 until 1932 Mies van der Rohe was vice president of the Deutsche Werkbund, an association of designers and architects whose principal aim was the development of well-designed, mass-producible architecture and household objects by way of an alliance of art and industry. In 1927 the Werkbund presented the influential exhibition "Die Wohnung" (The Dwelling), which included the Weissenhof Siedlung (Weissenhof Housing Estate), an experimental group of model apartment buildings built in a suburb of Stuttgart. Under Mies van der Rohe's direction, a number of important architects, including Mart Stam and Marcel Breuer, collaborated on the project, designing furniture for the apartments. This graceful, elegant, and beautifully proportioned "MR" chair, developed from a 1924 design for a cantilevered chair by Mart Stam, was introduced by Mies van der Rohe at the 1927 Stuttgart exhibition and has remained in production ever since. Mies van der Rohe was the last director of the Bauhaus design school in Dessau, from 1930 until its closing in 1932. In 1938 he left Germany for America, where he headed the architecture department at the Illinois Institute of Technology.Major contributions to the architectural philosophies of the late 1920s and 1930s he made as artistic director of the werkbund-sponsored weissenhof project, a model housing colony in stuttgart. the modern apartments and houses were designed by leading european architects, including a block by Mies.In 1927 he designed one of his most famous buildings, the german pavilion at the international exposition in barcelona in 1929. this small hall, known as the barcelonapavilion (for which he also designed the famous chrome and leather 'barcelona chair'), had a flat roof supported by columns. the pavilion’s internal walls, made of glass and marble, could be moved around as they did not support the structure. the concept of fluid space with a seamless flow between indoors and outdoors was further explored in other projects he designed for decades to come.mies began working with lilly reich, who remained his collaborator and companion for more than ten years. In 1930, mies met new york architect philip johnson, who included several of his projects in MoMA’s first architecture exhibition held in 1932, 'modern architecture: international exhibition', thanks to which mies’s work began to be known in the united states.in the30s, none of his designs were built due to the sweeping economic and political changes overtaking germany. he was director of the Bauhaus school from 1930 until its disbandment in 1933, shut down under pressure from the new nazi government. He moved to the united states in 1937. from 1938 to 1958 he was head of the architecture department at the armour institute of technology in chicago, later renamed the illinois institute of technology. in the 40s, was asked to design a new campus for the school, a project in which he continued to refine his steel-and-glass style. he had also formed a new relationship with chicago artist lora marx that would last for the rest of his life.by 1944, he had become an american citizen and was well established professionally. in this period he designed one of his most famous buildings, a small weekend retreat outside chicago,a transparent box framed by eight exterior steel columns. the ‘farnsworth house’ is one of the most radically minimalist houses ever designed. its interior, a single room, is subdivided by partitions and completely enclosed in glass.in the 50s he continued to develop this concept of open, flexible space on a much larger scale:In 1953, he developed the convention hall, innovative was the structural system that spanned large distances.during this period he also realized his dream of building a glass skyscraper.the ' twin towers' in chicago were completed in 1951, followedby other high-rises in chicago, new york, detroit, Toronto. culminating in 1954 with the 'seagram' building in new york, hailed as a masterpiece of skyscraper design. for his career he achieved in 1959 the 'orden pour le merite' (germany) and in 1963 the 'presidential medal of freedom' (USA).in 1962, his career came full-circle when he was invited to design the 'new national gallery' in berlin. his design for this building achieved his long-held vision of an exposed steel structure that directly connected interior space to the landscape. He returned to Berlin several times while the gallery was under construction, but was unable to attend the opening in 1968.he died in Chicago on
August 17, 1969.

Principal

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. Mies, like many of his post World War I contemporaries, sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for their own eras. He created an influential Twentieth-Century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity and simplicity. His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. He strived towards an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of free-flowing open space. He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought a rational approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design, and is known for his use of the aphorisms "less is more" and "God is in the details".


Early career

Mies worked in his father's stone-carving shop and at several local design firms before he moved to Berlin joining the office of interior designer Bruno Paul. He began his architectural career as an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens from 1908 to 1912, where he was exposed to the current design theories and to progressive German culture. His talent was quickly recognized and he soon began independent commissions, despite his lack of a formal college-level education. A physically imposing, deliberative, and reticent man, Ludwig Mies renamed himself as part of his rapid transformation from a tradesman's son to an architect working with Berlin's cultural elite, adding the more aristocratic surname "van der Rohe". He began his independent professional career designing upper class homes in traditional Germanic domestic styles. He admired the broad proportions, regularity of rhythmic elements, attention to the relationship of the manmade to nature, and compositions using simple cubic volumes of the early nineteenth century Prussian Neo-Classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, while dismissing the eclectic and cluttered classical so common at the turn of the century.

Educator

Mies played a significant role as an educator, believing his architectural language could be learned, then applied to design any type of modern building. He worked personally and intensively on prototype solutions, and then allowed his students, both in school and his office, to develop derivative solutions for specific projects under his guidance. But when none was able to match the genius and poetic quality of his own work, he agonized about where his educational method had gone wrong.Mies placed great importance on education of architects who could carry on his design principles. He devoted a great deal of time and effort leading the architecture program at IIT. Mies served on the initial Advisory Board of the Graham Foundation in Chicago. His own practice was based on intensive personal involvement in design efforts to create prototype solutions for building types (860 Lake Shore Dr, the Farnsworth, Seagram, S.R. Crown Hall, The New National Gallery), then allowing his studio designers to develop derivative buildings under his supervision. Mies's grandson Dirk Lohan and two partners led the firm after he died in 1969. Lohan, who had collaborated with Mies on the New National Gallery, continued with existing projects but soon led the firm on his own independent path. Other disciples continued his teachings for a few years, notably Gene Summers, David Haid, Myron Goldsmith, Jaques Brownsom, Helmut Jahn, and other architects at the firms of C.F. Murphy and Skidmore Owings & Merrill.But while Mies' work had enormous influence and critical recognition, his approach failed to sustain a creative force as a style after his death and was eclipsed by the new wave of Post Modernism by the 1980s. He had hoped his architecture would serve as a universal model that could be easily imitated, but the aesthetic power of his best buildings proved impossible to match, instead resulting mostly in drab and uninspired structures. The failure of his followers to meet his high standard may have contributed to demise of Modernism and the rise of new competing design theories, notably Postmodernism; alternatively, his disregard for costs, context, and his clients' needs may have damaged Modernism's reputation along with his own.


Traditionalism to Modernism

Villa Tugendhat built in 1930 in Brno, in today's Czech Republic, for Fritz Tugendhat.
After World War I, Mies began, while still designing traditional custom homes, a parallel experimental effort in modernist design, joining his avant-garde peers in the long-running search for a new style for a new industrial democracy. The weak points of traditional styles had been under attack by progressive theorists since the mid-nineteenth century, primarily for attaching historical ornament unrelated to a modern structure's underlying construction. Their mounting criticism of the historical styles gained substantial cultural credibility after the disaster of World War I, widely seen as a failure of the old order of imperial leadership of Europe. The classical revival styles were particularly reviled by many as the architectural symbol of a now-discredited aristocratic system.
Boldly abandoning ornament altogether, Mies made a dramatic debut with his stunning competition proposal for the faceted all-glass Friedrichstrasse skyscraper in 1921, followed by a curved version in 1922. He continued with a series of brilliant pioneering projects, culminating in his two European masterworks: the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition (often called the Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929 (a reconstruction is now built on the original site) and the elegant Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, completed in 1930.
While continuing his traditional design practice Mies began to develop visionary projects that, though mostly unbuilt, rocketed him to fame as a progressive architect. He worked with the progressive design magazine G which started in July 1923. He developed prominence as architectural director of the Werkbund, organizing the influential Weissenhof prototype modernist housing exhibition. He was also one of the founders of the architectural association Der Ring. He joined the avant-garde Bauhaus design school as their director of architecture, adopting and developing their functionalist application of simple geometric forms in the design of useful objects.
Like all other avant guarde architects of the day, Mies based his own architectural theories and principles on his own personal re-combinations of ideas developed by many other thinkers and designers who had attacked the flaws of the traditional design styles, defined new criteria, and created alternative design solutions.
Mies' modernist thinking was influenced by the aesthetic credos of Russian Constructivism with their ideology of "efficient" sculptural constructions using modern industrial materials. Mies found appeal in the use of simple rectilinear and planar forms, clean lines, pure use of color, and the extension of space around and beyond interiors expounded by the Dutch De Stijl group. In particular, the layering of functions in space and the clear articulation of parts as expressed by Gerrit Rietveld appealed to Mies.
Like other architects in Europe, Mies was enthralled with the free-flowing inter-connected rooms which encompass their outdoor surroundings as demonstrated by the open floor plans of the American Prairie Style work of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The theories of Adolf Loos found resonance with Mies, particularly the ideas of eradication of ornament and the casting off of the superficial, the use of unadorned but rich materials, the nobility of anonymity, and an admiration for the unfettered pragmatism of American engineering structures and machines.


Death

Mies van der Rohe's grave marker in Graceland Cemetery
Over the last twenty years of his life, Mies developed and built his vision of a monumental "skin and bones" architecture that reflected his goal to provide the individual a place to fulfill himself in the modern era. Mies sought to create free and open spaces, enclosed within a structural order with minimal presence. Mies van der Rohe died in 1969, and was buried near Chicago's other famous architects in Uptown's Graceland Cemetery.



List of Buildings
Canada
Toronto-Dominion Centre - Office Tower Complex, Toronto
Westmount Square - Office & Residential Tower Complex, Westmount
Nuns' Island - 3 Residential Towers & Esso Service Station, Nuns' Island , Montréal (c.1969)
Czech Republic
Tugendhat House - Residential Home, Brno
Germany
Riehl House - Residential Home, Potsdam (1907)
Peris House - Residential Home, Zehlendorf (1911)
Werner House - Residential Home, Zehlendorf (1913)
Urbig House - Residential Home, Potsdam (1917)
Kempner House - Residential Home, Charlottenburg (1922)
Eichstaedt House - Residential Home, Wannsee (1922)
Feldmann House - Residential Home, Wilmersdorf (1922)
Mosler House - Residential Home, Babelsberg (1926)
Weissenhof Apartments - Residential Apartments, Stuttgart
H. Lange House - Residential Home, Krefeld
Esters House - Residential Home, Krefeld
New National Gallery - Modern Art Museum, Berlin
Auf dem Hügel - Essen
Mexico
Bacardi Office Building - Office Building, Mexico City
Spain
Barcelona Pavilion - World's Fair Pavilion, Barcelona
United States
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library - District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC
Richard King Mellon Hall of Science - Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA (1968)
IBM Plaza - Office Tower, Chicago
Lake Shore Drive Apartments - Residential Apartment Towers, Chicago
Seagram Building - Office Tower, New York City
Crown Hall - College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology
I.I.T. Gas Station - Service Station at Illinois Institute of Technology
Farnsworth House - Residential Home, Plano, Illinois
Chicago Federal Center
Dirksen Federal Building - Office Tower, Chicago
Kluczynski Federal Building - Office Tower, Chicago
United States Post Office Loop Station - General Post Office, Chicago
One Illinois Center - Office Tower, Chicago
One Charles Center - Office Tower, Baltimore, Maryland
Highfield House Condominium 4000 North Charles - Condominium Apartments, Baltimore, Maryland
Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Newark, New Jersey
Lafayette Park - Residential Apartment Complex, Detroit, Michigan (1963)
Commonwealth Promenade Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Chicago (1956)

Furniture

Mies designed modern furniture pieces using new industrial technologies that have become popular classics, such as the Barcelona chair and table, and the Brno chair. His furniture is known for fine craftsmanship, a mix of traditional luxurious fabrics like leather combined with modern chrome frames, and a distinct separation of the supporting structure and the supported surfaces, often employing cantilevers to enhance the feeling of lightness created by delicate structural frames. During this period, he collaborated closely with interior designer and companion Lilly Reich.