MIES RHOE
van der
Index
Biography
6,7
Short description of his life.
Career
8,13
Early career, Personal, Traditionalism to Modernism, Emigration and Career in the United States.
american work
14,17
His significant projects in the U.S.
Barcelona Pabillion
18,19
General information, facts, drawings and plans.
Villa Tugendhat
20,21
General information, facts, drawings and plans.
IBM Plaza General information, facts, drawings and plans.
22,23
“less is more”
5
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He is commonly referred to and was addressed as Mies, his surname. Along with Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, he 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 strove toward 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, but he was always concerned with expressing the spirit of the modern era. He is often associated with his quotation of the aphorisms, “less is more” and “God is in the details”. 7
Early career
Born
March 27, 1886 Aachen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died
August 17, 1969 (aged 83) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Nationality
German (1886–1944), American (1944–1969)
Spouse(s)
Adele Auguste (Ada) Bruhn (1913-1918) (separated)
Children 4
Awards
Pour le Mérite (1959) Royal Gold Medal (1959) AIA Gold Medal (1960) Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963)
Buildings
Barcelona Pavilion Tugendhat House Crown Hall Farnsworth House 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Seagram Building New National Gallery Toronto-Dominion Centre Westmount Square
Mies was born in Aachen, Germany. He worked in his father’s stone-carving shop and at several local design firms before he moved to Berlin, where he joined 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, working alongside Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, who were later also involved in the development of the Bauhaus. Mies served as construction manager of the Embassy of the German Empire in Saint Petersburg under Behrens. 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 “van der”
and his mother’s surname “Rohe”,using the Dutch “van der”, rather than the German form “von” which was legally restricted to those of genuine aristocratic lineage. He began his independent professional career designing upper-class homes, joining the movement seeking a return to the purity of early nineteenth-century Germanic domestic styles. He admired the broad proportions, regularity of rhythmic elements, attention to the relationship of the man-made to nature, and compositions using simple cubic forms of the early nineteenth century Prussian Neo-Classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. He rejected the eclectic and cluttered classical styles so common at the turn of the twentieth century as irrelevant to the modern times.
Personal
In 1913, Mies married Adele Auguste (Ada) Bruhn (1885-1951), the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. The couple separated in 1918, but had three daughters: Dorothea (1914-2008), an actress and dancer who was known as Georgia, Marianne
(1915-2003), and Waltraut (1917-1959), who was a research scholar and curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. During his military service in 1917, Mies fathered a son out of wedlock. In 1925 Mies began a relationship with designer Lilly Reich that ended when he moved to the United States; from 1940 until his death, artist Lora Marx (1900-1989) was his primary companion. Mies carried on a romantic relationship with sculptor and art collector Mary Callery for whom he designed an artist’s studio in Huntington, Long Island, New York. He also was rumored to have a brief relationship with Edith Farnsworth, who commissioned his work for the Farnsworth House. Marianne’s son Dirk Lohan (b. 1938) studied under, and later worked for, Mies.
Traditionalism to Modernism Villa Tugendhat built in 1930 in Brno, in today’s Czech Republic, for Fritz Tugendhat Barcelona Pavilion, 1929. (reconstruction) After World War I, Mies
began, while still designing traditional neoclassical homes, a parallel experimental effort. He joined his avant-garde peers in the long-running search for a new style that would be suitable for the modern industrial age. The weak points of traditional styles had been under attack by progressive theorists since the mid-nineteenth century, primarily for the contradictions of hiding modern construction technology with a facade of ornamented traditional styles. The mounting criticism of the historical styles gained substantial cultural credibility after World War I, a disaster widely seen as a failure of the old world order of imperial leadership of Europe. The aristocratic classical revival styles were particularly reviled by many as the architectural symbol of a now-discredited and outmoded social system. Progressive thinkers called for a completely new architectural design process guided by rational problem-solving and an exterior expression of modern materials and structure rather than, what they considered, the superficial applica-
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1 Barcelona Pavilion, 1929. (reconstruction) pag16,17.
2 Villa Tugendhat built in 1930 in Brno, in today’s Czech Republic, for Fritz Tugendhat pag18,19.
tion of classical facades. While continuing his traditional neoclassical design practice Mies began to develop visionary projects that, though mostly unbuilt, rocketed him to fame as an architect capable of giving form that was in harmony with the spirit of the emerging modern society. Boldly abandoning ornament altogether, Mies made a dramatic modernist debut with his stunning competition proposal for the faceted allglass Friedrichstraße skyscraper in 1921, followed by a taller curved version in 1922 named the Glass Skyscraper. He continued with a series of pioneering projects, culminating in his two European masterworks: the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition 1 (often called the Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929 (a 1986 reconstruction is now built on the original site) and the elegant Villa Tugendhat 2 in Brno, Czech Republic, completed in 1930. He joined the German avant-garde, working with the progressive design magazine G which started in July 1923. He developed
prominence as architectural director of the Werkbund, organizing the influential Weissenhof Estate 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. He served as its last director. Like many other avant-garde architects of the day, Mies based his architectural mission and principles on his understanding and interpretation of ideas developed by theorists and critics who pondered the declining relevance of the traditional design styles. He selectively adopted theoretical ideas such as the aesthetic credos of Russian Constructivism with their ideology of “efficient” sculptural assembly of 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 interior walls expounded by
the Dutch De Stijl group. In particular, the layering of functional sub-spaces within an overall space and the distinct articulation of parts as expressed by Gerrit Rietveld appealed to Mies. The design theories of Adolf Loos found resonance with Mies, particularly the ideas of replacing elaborate applied artistic ornament with the straightforward display of innate visual qualities of materials and forms. Loos had proposed that art and crafts should be entirely independent of architecture, that the architect should no longer control those cultural elements as the Beaux Arts principles had dictated. Mies also admired his ideas about the nobility that could be found in the anonymity of modern life. The bold work of American architects was greatly admired by European architects. Like other architects who viewed the exhibitions of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio, Mies was enthralled with the free-flowing spaces of inter-connected rooms which encompass their outdoor surroundings as demonstrated
by the open floor plans of the Wright’s American Prairie Style. American engineering structures were also held up to be exemplary of the beauty possible in functional construction, and its skyscrapers were greatly admired.
Significance and meaning
Mies pursued an ambitious lifelong mission to create a new architectural language that could be used to represent the new era of technology and production. He saw a need for an architecture expressive of and in harmony with his epoch, just as Gothic architecture was for an era of spiritualism. He applied a disciplined design process using rational thought to achieve his spiritual goals. He believed that the configuration and arrangement of every architectural element, particularly including the character of enclosed space, must contribute to a unified expression. One notable way that Mies connected his buildings with nature was by extending outdoor plaza tiles into the floor of a lobby, synthesizing the exterior and interior spaces of the site. The device
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accentuated the effortless flow between natural conditions and artificial structures. This characteristic is often found in his large building projects such as the Seagram Building.
work, beyond its aesthetic qualities, has drawn many contemporary philosophers and theoretical thinkers to continue to further explore and speculate about his architecture.
The self-educated Mies painstakingly studied the great philosophers and thinkers, past and present, to enhance his own understanding of the character and essential qualities of the technological times he lived in. More than perhaps any other practising pioneer of modernism, Mies mined the writings of philosophers and thinkers for ideas that were relevant to his architectural mission. Mies’ architecture was guided by principles at a high level of abstraction, and his own generalized descriptions of those principles intentionally leave much room for interpretation. Yet his buildings are executed as objects of beauty and craftsmanship, and seem very direct and simple when viewed in person.
Emigration to the United States
Every aspect of his architecture, from overall concept to the smallest detail, supports his effort to express the modern age. The depth of meaning conveyed by his
Commission opportunities dwindled with the worldwide depression after 1929. Starting in 1930, Mies served as the last director of the faltering Bauhaus, at the request of his colleague and competitor Walter Gropius. In 1932, Nazi political pressure forced the state-supported school to leave its campus in Dessau, and Mies moved it to an abandoned telephone factory in Berlin. By 1933, however, the continued operation of the school was untenable (it was raided by the Gestapo in April), and in July of that year, Mies and the faculty voted to close the Bauhaus. He built very little in these years (one built commission was Philip Johnson’s New York apartment); the Nazis rejected his style as not “German” in character. Frustrated and unhappy, he left his homeland reluctantly in 1937 as he saw his
opportunity for any future building commissions vanish, accepting a residential commission in Wyoming and then an offer to head the department of architecture of the newly established Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. There he introduced a new kind of education and attitude later known as Second Chicago School, which became very influential in the following decades in North America and Europe.
Career in the United States IBM Plaza 3, Chicago, Illinois Mies settled in Chicago, Illinois where he was appointed head of the architecture school at Chicago’s Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute of Technology). One of the benefits of taking this position was that he would be commissioned to design the new buildings and master plan for the campus. All his buildings still stand there, including Alumni Hall, the Chapel, and his masterpiece the S.R. Crown Hall, built as the home of IIT’s School of Architecture. Crown Hall is widely regarded as Mies’ finest work, the definition of
Miesian architecture. In 1944, he became an American citizen, completing his severance from his native Germany. His thirty years as an American architect reflect a more structural, pure approach toward achieving his goal of a new architecture for the twentieth century. He focused his efforts on enclosing open and adaptable “universal” spaces with clearly arranged structural frameworks, featuring prefabricated steel shapes filled in with large sheets of glass. His early projects at the IIT campus, and for developer Herb Greenwald, presented to Americans a style that seemed a natural progression of the almost forgotten nineteenth century Chicago School style. His architecture, with origins in the German Bauhaus and western European International Style, became an accepted mode of building for American cultural and educational institutions, developers, public agencies, and large corporations.
3 IBM Plaza, Chicago, Illinois. pag20,21.
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American work
Mies worked from his studio in downtown Chicago for his entire 31-year period in America. His significant projects in the U.S. include in Chicago and the area: the residential towers of 860–880 Lake Shore Dr, the Chicago Federal Center complex, the Farnsworth House, Crown Hall and other structures at IIT; and the Seagram Building in New York. These iconic works became the prototypes for his other projects. He also built homes for wealthy clients. Farnsworth House
Plan of Farnsworth house
Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House Between 1946 and 1951, Mies van der Rohe designed and built the Farnsworth House, a weekend retreat outside Chicago for an independent professional woman, Dr. Edith Farnsworth. Here, Mies explored the relationship between people, shelter, and nature. The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies.
Built 1951 Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Architectural style International Style, Modernist Governing body National Trust for Historic Preservation 15
860–880 Lake Shore Drive Mies designed a series of four middle-income high-rise apartment buildings for developer Herb Greenwald: the 860–880 (which was built between 1949 and 1951) and 900–910 Lake Shore Drive towers on Chicago’s Lakefront. These towers, with façades of steel and glass, were radical departures from the typical residential brick apartment buildings of the time. Mies found their unit sizes too small for him, choosing instead to continue living in a spacious traditional luxury apartment a few blocks away. The towers were simple rectangular boxes with a non-hierarchical wall enclosure, raised on stilts above a glass-enclosed lobby. Plan of Lake Shore Drive
Built 1949 Architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe Architectural style Moderne Governing body Private
Seagram Building In 1958, Mies van der Rohe designed what is often regarded as the pinnacle of the modernist high-rise architecture, the Seagram Building in New York City. Mies was chosen by the daughter of the client, Phyllis Bronfman Lambert, who has become a noted architectural figure and patron in her own right. The Seagram Building has become an icon of the growing power of the corporation, that defining institution of the twentieth century. In a bold and innovative move, the architect chose to set the tower back from the property line to create a forecourt plaza and fountain on Park Avenue.
Plan of Seagram Building
Built 1958 Architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe Architectural style Moderne Governing body Private 17
Type Exhibition building Architectural style Modernism Location Barcelona, Spain Inaugurated 27 May 1929 Demolished 1930 (rebuilt in 1986) Technical details steel frame with glass and polished stone
Barcelona Pavilion The Barcelona Pavilion, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. This building was used for the official opening of the German section of the exhibition. It is an important building in the history of modern architecture, known for its simple form and its spectacular use of extravagant materials, such as marble, red onyx and travertine. The same features of minimalism and spectacular can be applied to the prestigious furniture specifically designed for the building, among which the iconic Barcelona chair. It has inspired many important modernist buildings, including Michael Manser’s Capel Manor House in Kent.
Drawing of the Barcelona Pavilion
Plan of the Barcelona Pavilion 19
Villa Tugendhat
Drawing of the Villa Tugendhat
Villa Tugendhat is a historical building in the wealthy neighbourhood of Černá Pole in Brno, Czech Republic. It is one of the pioneering prototypes of modern architecture in Europe, and was designed by the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Built of reinforced concrete between 1928 and 1930[1] for Fritz Tugendhat and his wife Greta, the villa soon became an icon of modernism.
Design
The free-standing three-story villa is on a slope and faces the south-west. The second story (the ground floor) consists of the main living and social areas with the conservatory and the terrace, and the kitchen and servants’ rooms. The third story (the first floor) has the main entrance from the street with a passage to the terrace, the entrance hall, and rooms for the parents, children and the nanny with appropriate facilities. The chauffeur’s flat with the garages and the terrace are accessed separately. Mies’ design principle of “less is more” and emphasis on functional amenities created a fine example of early Type functionalism architecture, a groundbreaking new viExhibition building sion in building design at the time. Mies used a revoluArchitectural style tionary iron framework, which enabled him to dispense Modernism with supporting walls and arrange the interior in order to achieve a feeling of space and light. One wall is a sliLocation ding sheet of plate glass that descends to the basement Barcelona, Spain the way an automobile window does. Inaugurated 27 May 1929 Demolished 1930 (rebuilt in 1986) Technical details steel frame with glass and polished stone
Plan of the Villa Tugendhat
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IBM Plaza 330 North Wabash (formerly IBM Plaza also known as IBM Building and now renamed AMA Plaza) is a skyscraper in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States, at 330 N. Wabash Avenue, designed by famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (who died in 1969 before construction began). A small bust of the architect by sculptor Marino Marini is displayed in the lobby. The 52-story building is situated on a plaza overlooking the Chicago River. At 695 feet (211,8 meters), 330 North Wabash is the second-tallest building by Mies van der Rohe, the tallest being the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower at Toronto-Dominion Centre. It was his last American building.
Views of IBM Plaza
The former IBM Plaza has several design features that are rare in an office building but understandable given its original owner. The building’s electrical system, environmental system, floor strength, and ceiling height (on certain floors) can support large “raised floor” computing centers. Also, the “banked” intelligent elevator system is a model of efficiency and rarely keeps anyone waiting for service. IBM Plaza stayed dry during the 1992 Chicago Flood. Location 330 North Wabash, Chicago, Illinois Built 1973 Governing body Private (Prime Group Realty Trust) Significant dates Added to NRHP March 11, 2010 Designated CL February 6, 2008 23
Este libro se termino de imprimir en el Centro de impresión y copiado “El Poli” el día 26 de Noviembre del 2014, bajo el diseño tipográfico de Florencia Andrea Chillo. Se realizaró una tirada de 50 ejemplares.