Ludwig Mies was born in Aachen, Germany, to the wife of a stonemason in 1886. He attended the Cathedral School there between 1897 and 1900. In 1905 he moved to Berlin and, without formal architectural training, became an apprentice in the office of furniture designer (famous interior designer) Bruno Paul. In 1907, he built his first house as an independent architect, a wooden house in eighteenth-century style under the influence of English domestic architecture. Employed as a draftsman and designer in the office of Peter Behrens at the same time as Gropius was a senior assistant, Mies remained there until 1911. Among projects he worked on in Behrens's office were the German Embassy in St Petersburg (1911-1912) and an early study of a house (1911) for the art collectors Anton and Helene Kroller at the Hague in the Netherlands.
When Mies van der Rohe left the office of Peter Behrens, be was commissioned by Mrs. Kroller to prepare a new design for a house for the Hague, Netherlands. Mies van der Rohe worked for a year in Holland. A full-scale wood and canvas model was erected on the site, but the building was not built (A house was eventually built to the design of H. P. Beriage.)
Mies 's design for the house was derived from his study of the work of Kari Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1840). The project is known from drawings and photographs of the model and the mock-up. It was about that time that Mies, added his mother's family name, van der Rohe, to his surname for reason of its "sonorous" sound.
Reestablishing his practice as an independent architect in Berlin in 1912, Mies van der Rohe remained there until 1914, when he entered military service. After demobilization, he practiced architecture in Berlin until 1937. In 1918 he joined the Novembergruppe and served as its director of architectural exhibits until 1925. Mies van der Rohe became a member of the Zehner Ring. From 1926 to 1932, Mies van der Rohe served as first vicepresident of the Deutscher Werkbund.
In 1921, a competition was held for the design of a skyscraper on the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin. Mies 's scheme was forward looking, of great simplicity, in the form of three prismatic towers around a central core. The exterior was sheathed with glass. However, this project was not acceptable because the conditions of the competition could not be met with this solution.
There was no client for Mies 's proposal for a glass skyscraper (1922) in the form of a thirty-story tower designed for an irregular site located near the crossing of two broad avenues. The remarkable free-form plan sheathed in glass remained a strictly aesthetic study, without a solution for its structure. The project is known from photographs of a model, drawings, and sketches.
Dating of the proposal for a concrete country house is based on evidence that it was displayed in Berlin in May 1923 and at the Weimar Bauhaus in the autumn of that year. The proposal is known from photographs of a model and a few drawings. As this project shows Mies van der Rohe moving to a true "modem" style, it has always been of great interest. He undertook a number of studies of concrete buildings, including office structures at this time.
The plan for a brick country house in 1924 has a remarkable resemblance to the de Stiji paintings of Theo Van Doesburg. Mies van der Rohe was interested in brick as a traditional material and used it in the design for this proposed country house. Walls were free standing, sliding out from beneath the roof into the landscape. The walls connected to glass enclosures produced an entirely new effect, with radical implications for living style. Mies van der Rohe used these concepts to good effect in the Barcelona Pavilion of 1929.
The brick monument to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (1926) in Berlin commemorated the ill-fated Spartacist 1919 uprising. Mies 's design was an abstract brick structure 6 m high, 12 m long, and at the widest, 4 m wide. Related to constructivist sculpture, it has also been compared to Frank Lloyd Wright's design for the Kaufmann house, "Falling Water." The five-pointed star and hammer and sickle completed the design. The Nazis ordered it destroyed in 1933. It was an exception for Mies van der Rohe to design a political monument, for he was normally nonpolitical. The commission came from Eduard Fuchs, president of the German Communist Party at that time. Mies van der Rohe was later attacked as a Communist because of this commission.
In 1927 Mies van der Rohe was director and designer of the Werkbund Exposition, "The Weissenhofsiedlung," overlooking Stuttgart. Sixteen architects of world renown, including Le Corbusier, Peter Behrens, Richard Docker, Hans Pelzig, Hans Scharoun, and Walter Gropius were commissioned to design and build 320 white houses. The houses were of the very latest design, using the most recently developed materials. This was the first housing project to be built in Europe using designs that were the last word in modernity - flat roofs and cubic forms. Glass and concrete were the main construction materials. The houses were built taking into consideration the latest ideas in communal living that psychologists and sociologists had devised.
This success was followed by Mies 's appointment as Director of the German Section of the International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. The pavilion was awarded to Mies van der Rohe in the summer of 1928 because the Weimar Republic wished to present itself as progressive. It was used as an information and reception center and was opened in the presence of the Spanish King Alfonso XIII and the royal family. Demolished in 1930, the building is known from photographs. Reconstructed in Barcelona in the 1980s, this icon of modem architecture may now be experienced in facsimile on its original site. Many feel that Mies 's fame would have endured on the basis of this one building. The Barcelona chairs designed for the pavilion, originally in white leather, remain in production and have been widely used in the United States.
Mies van der Rohe became well known for the glass and steel, "skin and bones" clarity that the Barcelona Pavilion expressed as well as the planar inner walls that are an outgrowth of the belief that space must be made universal and flexible.
The luxurious Tugendhat house in Brno, Czechoslovakia (1930) was the largest designed by Mies van der Rohe. On a sloping site, the building is a compact two-story plan, entered from the street at the upper level. The free flowing spaces of the living and dining areas give this house much of its quality. Its use of exterior terraces on both levels is omparable to Le Corbusier's Villa Stein in Garches, France, of 1927. Programmatically, the house is similar in function to large, late nineteenth-century country houses. Individual spaces could be shut off using draperies on ceiling tracks. The curved wall denning the dining room is Macassar wood, with an onyx freestanding wall denning space between living area and study. The Brno chairs designed for this house are still produced. The house suffered damage and is now owned by the city of Bmo. Restoration of the house was begun in 1986.
All of Mies van der Rohe's furniture designs, with the exception of some studies, occurred in his German period. He worked for many years with the interior designer Lilly Reich (1885-1947), but the designs bearing Mies 's name are considered his own. These pieces are well known because they were sold by Knoll Associates in the United States. Well-known pieces include the Barcelona chair (1929). MR chairs (1926), Tugendhat chair (1930), and Brno chair, couch, and coffee table (1930). Other pieces were simple tables based on the careful selection of materials rather than on new technology. In 1930, Gropius recommended Mies van der Rohe as successor to Hannes Meyer (1889-1954) as director of the Dessau Bauhaus. During that period Mies van der Rohe was also director of the Werkbund Section, "The Dwelling", of the Berlin Building Exposition of 1931. In that year Mies van der Rohe was made a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and Sciences. When the Dessau Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, Mies van der Rohe moved it to Berlin in 1933, but again the Nazis closed the school; the faculty dispersed on August 10 of that year.
In 1937, Mies van der Rohe made his first trip to the United States, followed in 1938 by his immigration there. Mies van der Rohe was appointed Director of Architecture at the Armour Institute in Chicago (since 1940, the Illinois Institute of Technology). In 1944 Mies van der Rohe became a U.S. citizen.
With the establishment of a new campus for the Illinois Institute of Technology, Mies van der Rohe had the opportunity to plan the campus as well as several of the buildings. The first structures, started under wartime conditions, were variations on steel-framed one- to three-story buildings with brick end glass. The care in detailing intersections and corners gives the buildings distinction. The simplicity the chapel (1952) is noteworthy, as is the last of the buldings designed by Mies van der Rohe for the campus. Crown Hall (1950-1956). The latter building is an enormous room, 120 x 220 ft in plan, 18 ft high without interior columns, used for the architectural school. The building is raised several feet above the ground to allow light for the belowgrade School of Design. The most interesting point is the structural solution of exposed structural beams above the roof, making dear the method of achieving the clear-span interior. Mies van der Rohe ended his relationship with the school in 1958.
Dr. Edith Farnsworth commissioned a house from Mies van der Rohe in 1946 for weekend and vacation use, on the Fox River, Plano, Illinois. The house is a simple glass pavilion on a raised platform; the exterior columns make the roof and platform appear to float above the site. Construction started in 1949. Before completion, Dr. Farnsworth brought a lawsuit against Mies van der Rohe that was settled in Mies 's favor. This experience may have contributed to the fact that Mies van der Rohe concentrated on large building types after this.
The 26-story 860-880 Lake Shore Apartments in Chicago (1948-1951) were an important advance in high-rise design. Based on a 21-ft bay, the structural cage is clearly expressed, with spaces between structural members in glass. At the ground level, service and lobby areas are set in from the columns, providing covered walk areas. For appearance, I-beams were welded to columns and mullions. This use of steel for decorative use was an aesthetic decision. White draperies against the glass gave a uniform appearance, with the possibility of interior draperies for individual selection. The buildings continue to look well, better than most buildings of their age. There has been extensive published commentary on these and other apartment towers designed by Mies van der Rohe.
In 1953, Mies van der Rohe introduced Gropius at a fete marking the latter*s seventieth birthday, tracing their long association, and lauding Gropius's contributions.
The Seagram building on Park Avenue in New York City (1954-1958) was set back 90 feet from Park Avenue and 35 feet from the side streets. It rises in a simple shaft to 39 stories. More space could have been built on the site under zoning laws, but the client agreed to the reduction in floor space. Lower structures behind the tower close off the center of the block. The plaza on Park Avenue, raised from the street, consists of simple stone paving flanked by pools. The walls are a bronze curtain wall, and the finish throughout was carefully designed by Mies van der Rohe. The building has landmark status.
The Toronto Dominion Centre is related in concept to the Federal Center in Chicago and Westmount Square in Montreal. Mies van der Rohe most carefully considered the design of the Toronto project; the other two were carried out by his office under his direction. Asymmetrical groupings of towers on a plaza, the buildings have remarkable similarities despite variations in function. This prototype approach was congenial to Mies van der Rohe, and in Chicago it was played off with the one-story post office pavilion. The clarity of detail and care in design of the walls make these typically Miesian buildings fit their urban settings well. In the Canadian projects, the underground shops, parking, and ties to transportation systems (in Montreal) were important urban considerations.
The New National Gallery for Berlin (completed 1968) was a late work, derived in concept from earlier studies for museums and the Bacardi office building project in Cuba, never built. The roof structure and supports are the essence of the building. Exterior columns were carefully designed, standing in front of an all-glass wall. The entire roof was raised in one operation, high enough for the columns to be placed on their foundations; the roof was then lowered onto pin connections. The immensity of the enclosed space has made it a difficult space for art. It is more an expression of Mies 's aesthetic, and is its own exhibition.
Mies van der Rohe was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1959, the AIA Gold Medal in 1960, and the J. Lloyd Kimbrough Medal in 1961. Mies van der Rohe was the first architect to receive the American Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1963. Mies van der Rohe was the recipient of prizes from the city of Munich and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and from the Bund Deutscher Architekten in 1966. After a long illness, Mies van der Rohe died in Chicago on August 17,1969, at the age of 83, only a month after the death of Walter Gropius.
One of the great masters of early twentieth-century architecture along with Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe made a major impact on the look of U.S. cities. His wide acceptance by corporate America brought him more important commissions than Mies van der Rohe had received in Germany in his earlier days.
His elegant curtain walls were widely adapted by others using less expensive construction, giving rise to the glib phrase "less is a bore." Mies van der Rohe has been criticized because his buildings, although appearing machine-made, were in large part built by hand. Mies van der Rohe was accused of paying small attention to functional demands, such as ignoring excessive solar gain through glass walls. Mies van der Rohe was also described as insensitive to neighboring structures and to environmental concerns. Critics have claimed that his best work was the design of undifferentiated spaces such as lobbies, convention halls, or open office floors.
What is likely to be his lasting impact was Mies 's concern with theoretical concepts, clarity of image, careful attention to detail, and lightness of proportion. These architectural concepts will survive.
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