LUDWIG MIES VAN DER

ROHE
STYLE AND STRUCTURES

Done by :
Sandhiya . B
Sanjana . G
 TIMELINE
• On March 27th, 1886
Ludwig Mies was born
in Aachen, Germany.
He later incorporated his
mother's maiden
name ("Rohe") into his own as he rose to
prominence in the architectural
community.
 CONCEPT AND STYLE
• Believing that less is more, Mies van der
Rohe designed rational, minimalist
skyscrapers, houses, and furniture.
• He also believed that God was in the
details.
• Along with the Viennese architect Richard
Neutra(1892-1970) and the Swiss architect Le
Corbusier (1887-1965), Mies van der Rohe
not only set the standard for all modernist
design, but brought European modernism to
America.
 WHAT IS NEO-MIESIAN?
• Neo means new. Miesian refers to Mies van der Rohe.
A Neo-Miesian builds upon the beliefs and approaches
that Mies practiced—the "less is more" minimalist
buildings in glass and steel.
• Although Miesian buildings are unornamented, they are
not plain. For example, the famous Farnsworth House
combines glass walls with pristine white steel columns.
Believing that "God is in the details," Mies van der Rohe
achieved visual richness through his meticulous and
sometimes surprising choice of materials. The towering
glass Seagram Building uses bronze beams to
accentuate the structure. Interiors juxtapose the
whiteness of stone against the swooping fabric-like wall
panels.
 IMPORTANT BUILDINGS:
• 1928-29: Barcelona Pavilion
• 1950: Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois
• FURNITURE DESIGNS:
• 1927: Side Chair (MR 10)
• 1929: The Barcelona® Chair
• 1930: Brno Flat Bar Chair
 1929 - BARCELONA CHAIR
• Perhaps the most iconic work from Mies'
oeuvre, the Barcelona Chair at once
gives life to and is born from its materials.
Like the MR and Brno Chairs, it is
composed of steel and leather. The steel
bar legs ease up and over to support the
seat and back of the chair. Mies' gift was
to endow grace in otherwise
monotonous substances. The Barcelona
Chair attests to his mastery of form,
function, and beauty.
 BARCELONA PAVILLION
• Type - Exhibition building
• Architectural style - *Modernism
• Location - Barcelona, Spain
• Construction - started 1928
• Construction system - steel frame with glass and
polished stone
• Completed -1929
• Inaugurated - May 27, 1929
• Demolished - 1930 (rebuilt in 1986)
• Client - Government of Germany
• Architect - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
• The pavilion’s design is based on a
formulaic grid system developed by Mies
that not only serves as the patterning of
the travertine pavers, but it also serves as
an underlying framework that the wall
systems work within.
• By raising the pavilion on a plinth in
conjunction with the narrow profile of the
site, the Barcelona Pavilion has a low
horizontal orientation that is accentuated
by the low flat roof that appears to float
over both the interior as well as the
exterior.
 THE BUILDING
• Mies wanted the pavilion to become "an ideal zone of
tranquillity" for the weary visitor, who should be invited
into the pavilion on the way to the next attraction. Since
the pavilion lacked a real exhibition space, the building
itself was to become the exhibit. The pavilion was
designed to "block" any passage through the site, rather,
one would have to go through the building.
• Another unique feature of this building is the exotic
materials Mies chooses to use. Plates of high-grade stone
materials like veneers of marble and golden *onyx as
well as tinted glass of grey, green and white, as well as
translucent glass, perform exclusively as spatial dividers.
Glass, travertine, marble, onyx and steel were his only
few choices.
 FARNSWORTH HOUSE
• Location : Plano, Illinois
• Date : 1946 to 1950 timeline
• Building Type: residential building
• Construction System :steel frame with
glass
• Climate :temperate
• Context :rural
• Style :Modern
 VIEW

ELEVATION
 STYLE:
• The Farnsworth House, designed and completed by Mies
van der Rohe from 1946 to 1951, is considered a seminal
example of International Style architecture as it was
introduced to the United States. Located on the bank of
the Fox River in Plano, Illinois, the house was commissioned
to be a weekend retreat for a single woman, Dr. Edith
Farnsworth.
• The house's structure consists of precast concrete floor and
roof slabs supported by a carefully crafted steel skeleton
frame of beams, girders and columns.
• The facade is made of single panes of glass spanning from
floor to ceiling, fastened to the structural system by steel
mullions. The building is heated by radiant coils set in the
concrete floor; natural cross ventilation and the shade of
nearby trees provide minimal cooling.
• Though it proved difficult to live in, the Farnsworth House's
elegant simplicity is still regarded as an important
accomplishment of the international style.
 THE BUILDING
• The house's steel skeleton frame structure provides an
exterior armature supporting uninterrupted floor and roof
planes. Eight W-shape columns in parallel rows 28 feet
apart support 15" channel section beams at floor and
roof level. These beams frame a steel joist / pre-cast
concrete slab system which supports roof, ceiling and
floor finishes.
• Steel mullions, built up of angles and bars, support the
vertical edges of the glass panes. A continuous curtain
track allows for user defined privacy and shading. The
facade's only operable lites are the entrance's double
doors, and two operable hopper windows in the bottom
part of the eastern facade. The effect of this fully
transparent facade is to blur the usual boundaries
defining domesticity. In the Farnsworth house, distinctions
between public and private, outside and inside, often
disappear.
 PLANNING:
• The interior space of the house is delineated by
an asymmetrically placed core volume,
containing the kitchen, bathroom and fireplace.
In contrast to the facade's steel and glass, it is
constructed primarily of primavera plywood.
• The core is the only place where elements
puncture the severe roof and floor planes. Drain
and sewage pipes go through the floor to the
ground, and a vertical shaft containing bathroom
vents and the fireplace flue punctures the roof.
• These utilities are suppressed by being recessed
into the more inaccessible and discrete center
areas of the slabs, making them virtually invisible
from view, even from the exterior of the house.