Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, born

Maria Ludwig Michael Mies (March
27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) was a
German architect

 Along with Walter Gropius and Le

Corbusier, is widely regarded as
one of the pioneering masters of
modern architecture.

 He created an influential 20th

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".
 Seagram Building
Type Office

Architectural style International Style

375 Park Avenue

New York
Location
NY 10152
United States

40.75846°N
Coordinates 73.97219°WCoordinates:
40.75846°N 73.97219°W

Completed 1958

Owner Aby Rosen

Height

Roof 516 ft (157 m)

Technical details

Floor count 38[1]

Floor area 639,990 sq ft (59,457 m 2 )

Design and construction

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Philip

Architect
Johnson

Structural engineer Severud Associate

The Seagram Building is a skyscraper,
located at 375 Park Avenue, between
52nd Street and 53rd Street in Midtown
Manhattan, New York City

. The structure was designed by

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe while the
lobby and other internal aspects were
designed by Philip Johnson including
The Four Seasons and Brasserie
restaurants.

The building stands 515 feet tall with

38 stories, and was completed in 1958.
It stands as one of the finest examples
of the functionalist aesthetic and a
masterpiece of corporate modernism.
It was designed as the headquarters for
the Canadian distillers Joseph E.
Seagram's & Sons .
ARCHITECTURE
Its structure, and the International style in which it was built, had enormous influences
on American architecture.

 One of the style's characteristic traits was to express or articulate the structure of
buildings externally.

A building's structural elements should be visible, Mies thought. The Seagram

Building, like virtually all large buildings of the time, was built of a steel frame, from
which non-structural glass walls were hung.

Mies would have preferred the steel frame to be visible to all; however, American
building codes required that all structural steel be covered in a fireproof material,
usually concrete, because improperly protected steel columns or beams may soften
and fail in confined fires.
 Concrete hid the structure of the building
— something Mies wanted to avoid at all
costs — so Mies used non-structural
bronze-toned I-beams to suggest structure
instead.

 These are visible from the outside of the

building, and run vertically, like mullions,
surrounding the large glass windows. This
method of construction using an interior
reinforced concrete shell to support a larger
non-structural edifice has since become
commonplace. As designed, the building
used 1,500 tons of bronze in its
construction.
Another interesting feature of the Seagram
Building is the window blinds. As was
common with International style architects,
Mies wanted the building to have a uniform
appearance
. One aspect of a façade which Mies
disliked, was the disordered irregularity when
window blinds are drawn. Inevitably, people
using different windows will draw blinds to
different heights, making the building appear
disorganized.
 To reduce this disproportionate
appearance, Mies specified window blinds
which only operated in three positions – fully
open, halfway open/closed, or fully closed.
PLAN
SECTION
Elevation
Structure
The 38-story structure combines a steel moment frame and a steel and reinforced
concrete core for lateral stiffness. The concrete core shear walls extend up to the
17th floor, and diagonal core bracing (shear trusses) extends to the 29th floor.

According to Severud Associates, the structural engineering consultants, it was the

first tall building to use high strength bolted connections, the first tall building to
combine a braced frame with a moment frame, one of the first tall buildings to use a
vertical truss bracing system and the first tall building to employ a composite steel
and concrete lateral frame.
Plaza
The Seagram Building and Lever House, which sits just across Park
Avenue, set the architectural style for skyscrapers in New York for several
decades.

 It appears as a simple bronze box, set back from Park Avenue by a large,
open granite plaza.

Mies intended to create an urban open space in front of the building,

despite the luxuriousness of the idea, and it became a very popular
gathering area indeed

The Seagram Building's plaza was also the site of a landmark planning
study by William H. Whyte, the American sociologist.
Interior
The interior was designed
to assure cohesion with the
external feature,

Repeated in the glass and

bronze furnishings and
decorative schemes
Thank you