Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born Maria Ludwig Michael

Mies; March 27, 1886 August 19, 1969) was a GermanAmerican architect.He is commonly referred to, and was
addressed, as Mies, his surname. He served as the last
director of Berlin's Bauhaus, and then headed the department
of architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago,
where he developed the Second Chicago School. Along with
Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, 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 freeflowing 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".
Early career 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 manmade 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 (19171959),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.[6] 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 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 application 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 all-glass
Friedrichstrae skyscraper in 1921, followed by a taller
curved version in 1922 named the Glass Skyscraper.[8]
He continued with a series of pioneering projects, culminating
in his two European masterworks: the temporary German
Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition (often called the
Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929(a 1986 reconstruction is now
built on the original site) and the elegant Villa Tugendhat 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.
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.
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 work, beyond its
aesthetic qualities, has drawn many contemporary

philosophers and theoretical thinkers to continue to further

explore and speculate about his architecture.
Emigration to the United States 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, 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.
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 860880 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 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.
The highly-crafted pristine white structural frame and allglass walls define a simple rectilinear interior space, allowing
nature and light to envelop the interior space. A woodpanelled fireplace (also housing mechanical equipment,
kitchen, and toilets) is positioned within the open space to
suggest living, dining and sleeping spaces without using
walls. No partitions touch the surrounding all-glass enclosure.
Without solid exterior walls, full-height draperies on a
perimeter track allow freedom to provide full or partial
privacy when and where desired. The house has been
described as sublime, a temple hovering between heaven and
earth, a poem, a work of art.
The Farnsworth House and its 60-acre (240,000 m2) wooded
site was purchased at auction for US$7.5 million by
preservation groups in 2004 and is now owned and operated
by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a public
museum. The building influenced the creation of hundreds of
modernist glass houses, most notably the Glass House by
Philip Johnson, located near New York City and also now
owned by the National Trust.
The house is an embodiment of Mies' mature vision of
modern architecture for the new technological age: a single
unencumbered space within a minimal "skin and bones"
framework, a clearly understandable arrangement of
architectural parts. His ideas are stated with clarity and
simplicity, using materials that are configured to express their
own individual character.
Main article: 860880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments
860880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois
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 900910
Lake Shore Drive towers on Chicago's Lakefront. These
towers, with faades 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.
The lobby is set back from the perimeter columns, which
were exposed around the perimeter of the building above,
creating a modern arcade not unlike those of the Greek
temples. This configuration created a feeling of light,
openness, and freedom of movement at the ground level that
became the prototype for countless new towers designed both
by Mies's office and his followers. Some historians argue that
this new approach is an expression of the American spirit and

the boundless open space of the frontier, which German

culture so admired.
Once Mies had established his basic design concept for the
general form and details of his tower buildings, he applied
those solutions (with evolving refinements) to his later highrise building projects. The architecture of his towers appears
to be similar, but each project represents new ideas about the
formation of highly sophisticated urban space at ground level.
He delighted in the composition of multiple towers arranged
in a seemingly casual non-hierarchical relation to each other.
Just as with his interiors, he created free flowing spaces and
flat surfaces that represented the idea of an oasis of
uncluttered clarity and calm within the chaos of the city. He
included nature by leaving openings in the pavement, through
which plants seem to grow unfettered by urbanization, just as
in the pre-settlement environment.
Seagram Building In 1958, Mies van der Rohe designed
what is often regarded as the pinnacle of the modernist highrise 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.
Although now acclaimed and widely influential as an urban
design feature, Mies had to convince Bronfman's bankers that
a taller tower with significant "unused" open space at ground
level would enhance the presence and prestige of the building.
Mies' design included a bronze curtain wall with external Hshaped mullions that were exaggerated in depth beyond what
was structurally necessary. Detractors criticized it as having
committed Adolf Loos's "crime of ornamentation". Philip
Johnson had a role in interior materials selections, and he
designed the sumptuous Four Seasons Restaurant, which has
endured un-remodeled to today. The Seagram Building is said
to be an early example of the innovative "fast-track"
construction process, where design documentation and
construction are done concurrently.
Using the Seagram as a prototype, Mies' office designed a
number of modern high-rise office towers, notably the
Chicago Federal Center, which includes the Dirksen and
Kluczynski Federal Buildings and Post Office (1959) and the
IBM Plaza in Chicago; the Westmount Square in Montreal,
and the Toronto-Dominion Centre in 1967. Each project
applies the prototype rectangular form on stilts and ever-more
refined enclosure wall systems, but each creates a unique set
of exterior spaces that are an essential aspect of his creative
efforts.
During 19511952, Mies' designed the steel, glass, and brick
McCormick House, located in Elmhurst, Illinois (15 miles
west of the Chicago Loop), for real-estate developer Robert
Hall McCormick, Jr. A one-story adaptation of the exterior
curtain wall of his famous 860880 Lake Shore Drive towers,
it served as a prototype for an unbuilt series of speculative
houses to be constructed in Melrose Park, Illinois.
The house has been moved and reconfigured as a

part of the public Elmhurst Art Museum. He also built a

residence for John M. van Beuren on a family estate near
Morristown, New Jersey.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Caroline Weiss Law Building in Houston, Texas
Mies designed two buildings for the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston (MFAH) as additions to the Caroline Weiss Law
Building. In 1953, the MFAH commissioned Mies van der
Rohe to create a master plan for the institution. He designed
two additions to the buildingCullinan Hall, completed in
1958, and the Brown Pavilion, completed in 1974. A
renowned example of the International Style, these portions
of the Caroline Wiess Law Building comprise one of only two
Mies-designed museums in the world.[10]
National Gallery, Berlin Mies's last work was the Neue
Nationalgalerie art museum, the New National Gallery for the
Berlin National Gallery. Considered one of the most perfect
statements of his architectural approach, the upper pavilion is
a precise composition of monumental steel columns and a
cantilevered (overhanging) roof plane with a glass enclosure.
The simple square glass pavilion is a powerful expression of
his ideas about flexible interior space, defined by transparent
walls and supported by an external structural frame.
The glass pavilion is a relatively small portion of the overall
building, serving as a symbolic architectural entry point and
monumental gallery for temporary exhibits. A large podium
building below the pavilion accommodates most of the
museum's total built area in windowless spaces for galleries
and support functions.
Furniture Mies designed modern furniture pieces using new
industrial technologies that have become popular classics,
such as the Barcelona chair and table, the Brno chair, and the
Tugendhat 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.
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 set up a
new education at the department of architecture of the Illinois
Institute of Technology in Chicago replacing the traditional
Ecole des Beaux-Art curriculum by a three-step-education
beginning with crafts of drawing and construction leading to
planning skills and finishing with theory of architecture
(compare Vitruvius: firmitas, utilitas, venustas). 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.
Some of Mies' curriculum is still put in practice in the first
and second year programs at IIT, including the precise
drafting of brick construction details so unpopular with
aspiring student architects. When none were able to match the
quality of his own work, he agonized about where his
educational method had gone wrong. Nevertheless his
achievements in creating a teachable architecture language

that can be used to express the modern technological era

survives until today.
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 Drive,
the Farnsworth House, Seagram Building, 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 Mies's architectural language for years,
notably Gene Summers, David Haid, Myron Goldsmith,
Jacques Brownson, and other architects at the firms of C.F.
Murphy and Skidmore, Owings and 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. Proponents of the Post Modern style attacked
the Modernism with clever statements such as "less is a bore"
and with captivating images such as Crown Hall sinking in
Lake Michigan. Mies 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 rejected by the general public. 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 following his death. Mies van der Rohe's grave
marker in Graceland Cemetery
Death 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 on August
17, 1969. After cremation his ashes were buried near
Chicago's other famous architects in Chicago's Graceland
Cemetery. His grave is marked by a simple black slab of
granite and a large Honey locust tree.
Riehl House 1906 - 1907 Potsdam, Germany
The Riehl House was Mies' first building. He was twenty-one
at the time and was working for Bruno Paul. Here, Mies
reiterates much of Paul's classical German style with an
austere stucco exterior and a pronounced roof that emphasizes
the idea of shelter and home. The interior space pulled
inspiration from English cottages and Japanese architecture,
in addition to Paul.

Weissenhofsiedlung 1925 - 1927

Set on a hill overlooking Stuttgart, Germany, these twentyone houses and apartment buildings comprise one of the most
celebrated communal endeavors in the history of modern
architecture. The ultimate success of the Weissenhofsiedlung
owes much to the artistic director, Mies van der Rohe, whose
strategy was to invite a group of the most famous European
architects to design individual buildings in conformity with a
plan that he designed.

Urbig House 1915 - 1917

Impressed by the work he did for the Riehls, the Urbig family
commissioned a home from Mies in 1915. Mies' first design
called for a modern flat roof, but this was rejected. The new
plan offered a more traditional hipped roof with five dormer
windows.
Such revisions were common, and led many architects in the
early 20th century to revert to conventional aesthetics. While
Urbig House may be overly elaborate in decor, it is finely
made, demonstrating Mies' attention to detail and mastery of
planning and construction.

Friedrichstrasse Office
Building 1921 - 1921
Although it was never
built, Mies' design for the
Friedrichstrasse Office
Building remains one of
the most important
structures in 20th century
architecture. For the
Friedrichstrasse
architecture competition
in Berlin, Mies ignored
several rules dictated in
the guidelines and
presented a radical
concept to the committee:
skyscraper made entirely
of glass and steel. The
design didn't win; much
less receive an official
mention. Decades later,
this style has come to
dominate corporate architecture.

Barcelona, Spain the Barcelona Pavilion 1928 - 1929

Mies built the German (or Barcelona) Pavilion for the
Barcelona International Exposition of 1929. It housed the
ceremonial reception space for German industrial exhibits
commissioned by the German government. Mies united
sophisticated materials with a fluid open plan, which together
endowed the space with an unprecedented modern elegance.
The architecture's mass is balanced by a pond (featuring a
sculpture by Georg Kolb) and a shallow pool on either end.

a
Tugendhat House 1928 - 1930 Brno, Czech
Republic
It occupies a graded site overlooking a broad valley, with a
magnificent view of the city of Brno and the old Spielberg
Castle. The house was designed as a large and luxurious villa

for Grete and Fritz Tugendhat. This was the last major home
Mies built in Europe. Mies dealt with the extreme slope by
dividing the front and back of the house into public and
private facades. Facing the street, the building is only one
story, but it's two stories on the garden side. The home's decor
boasted several of Mies finest pieces of original furniture,
including the Brno chair, the Tugendhat chair, and the X
coffee table.

Farnsworth House Plano, IL, USA 1946 - 1951

S.R. Crown Hall 1950 - 1956 Illinois Institute of

Technology, Chicago, IL, USA

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library 1972 - 1972

Washington, D.C.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library evokes the
solemnity of public institutions. This is the only library and
the only building in Washington D.C. designed by Mies.
Inside, stacks of books echo the rows of fluorescent lights.
Outside, the sheer mass of the structure is felt as it stretches
down the city block. The project was completed several years
after Mies' death by his architecture firm.

The Seagram Building

1954 - 1958 New York
This 39-story, 516-foot tall
office building was
commissioned by Joseph
E. Seagram & Sons
Corporation, purveyors of
Seagram liquors. Noted for
its amber toned windows
and public plaza, the
Seagram is Mies' largest
work. The architect
worked around New York
City's zoning codes
mandating that skyscrapers
recess or "set back" as they
rose by recessing the entire
building. Like the Chicago
Federal Center and the
Neue Nationalgalerie, the
Seagram's plaza features a
monumental sculpture by Alexander Calder.