FROM REFLECTION TO TRANSPARENCY – MIES Van der ROHE

The glass at its maximum opacity produces reflection depending on the incidence of light.
The reflection produces transparency but at the same time opacity. When it reflects what is
in front of it, the glass is really behaving as an opaque material, we cannot see through it.
But at the same time, it speaks to us of transparency because the identity of the glass skin
disappears in itself, welcoming the identity of what is around it. The reflection will generate
two situations. On the one hand the building creates a mirror image of its environment, to
the point of distorting the reality that surrounds it and on the other hand, the exterior
camouflages it and it is diluted, to the point of practically disappearing.
The reflection of light is an intrinsic quality associated with glass. Therefore, when it is
projected, the influence it will have on its surroundings is taken into account.
A clear example is the skyscraper for
Friedrichtrasse, in Berlin, by Mies van der
Rohe. The building was a triangular-shaped
tower, of 20 floors, all equal and divided into
three parts. According to Mies, the prismatic
form was adapted to the triangular shape of
the floor plan and its faces were slightly
angled to avoid the monotony that usually
occurred when glazing large surfaces. During
the construction of the skyscraper one can admire how its gigantic structural grid is being
composed. But when the exterior enclosures are added, the art of this framework
disappears. In his drawings.
Mies shows the perception we will have of the building at
street level, due to the effect of the irregularity of the
perimeter and the variation of the reflections of the glass. He
does not try to understand the shape of the floor plan or the
importance of its landscape effect and is only interested in
the expression of the material and the play of reflections. This
complex and non-monotonous image of the glazed surface
is what he seems to value in the drawing. Mies represents
the building in this way. Only the upper profile gives
information about the shape of the building. In its lower half
the building is a grouping of vertical lines, irregular and
imprecise, which seem to suggest the reflections of the glass
and the difficulty they introduce in the perception of form. He
himself quoted: "I discovered working with glass models that what is important is the play
of reflections and not, as in an ordinary building, the effect of light and shadow".
We can say that the reflection produces a duplicity of space. The envelope instead of
functioning as a limit where the street ends and the building begins, the line of the façade
is the beginning of the space that is infinitely reproduced in the reflection, even though it is
an image that is distorted with respect to reality.