Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886 - 1969)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born as Maria Ludwig Michael Mies in 1886 and died 1969. He was a German-born American architect.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. Mies established a new 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 called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. Heis known for his use of the aphorisms "less is more" and "God is in the details".
Mies made a dramatic debut with his stunning competition proposal for Friedrichstraße skyscraper in 1921. He continued with a series of pioneering projects, such as: the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition (often called the Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929 (a reconstruction is now built on the original site) and the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, completed in 1930.
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.
After 1933, Nazi political pressure soon forced Mies to close the government-financed school of Bauhaus. When the arrived in the United States after 30 years of practice in Germany, his reputation as a pioneer of modern architecture was already established by American promoters of the international style.
Mies settled in Chicago, Illinois where he was appointed as head of the architecture school at Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute of Technology - IIT). In 1944, he became an American citizen. 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.
Mies also designed modern furniture pieces using new industrial technologies that have become popular classics, such as the Barcelona chair and table, and the Brno chair.
Mies van der Rohe died in 1969, and was buried near Chicago's other famous architects in Uptown's Graceland Cemetery.
Important Buildings:
- American Life Building - Louisville, Kentucky
- Auf dem Hügel - Essen
- Bacardi Office Building - Office Building, Mexico City
- Barcelona Pavilion - World's Fair Pavilion, Barcelona
- Caroline Weiss Law Building,
- Chicago Federal Center
- Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Newark, New Jersey
- Commonwealth Promenade Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Chicago
- Crown Hall - College of Architecture, and other buildings, at the Illinois Institute of Technology
- Cullinan Hall and Brown Pavilion additions, Museum of Fine Art, Houston
- Dirksen Federal Building - Office Tower, Chicago
- Eichstaedt House - Residential Home, Wannsee
- Esters House - Residential Home, Krefeld
- Farnsworth House - Residential Home, Plano, Illinois
- Feldmann House - Residential Home, Wilmersdorf
- H. Lange House - Residential Home, Krefeld
- Highfield House Condominium, 4000 North Charles - Condominium Apartments, Baltimore, Maryland
- IBM Plaza - Office Tower, Chicago
- Kempner House - Residential Home, Charlottenburg
- Kluczynski Federal Building - Office Tower, Chicago
- Lafayette Park - Residential Apartment Complex, Detroit, Michigan
- Lake Shore Drive Apartments - Residential Apartment Towers, Chicago
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library - District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC
- Mosler House - Residential Home, Babelsberg
- New National Gallery - Modern Art Museum, Berlin
- Nuns' Island - 3 Residential Towers & Esso Service Station, Nuns' Island , Montreal
- One Illinois Center - Office Tower, Chicago
- One Charles Center - Office Tower, Baltimore, Maryland
- Richard King Mellon Hall of Science - Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA
- Riehl House - Residential Home, Potsdam
- Peris House - Residential Home, Zehlendorf
- School of Social Services Administration, University of Chicago
- Seagram Building - Office Tower, New York City
- The Promontory Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Chicago
- Toronto-Dominion Centre - Office Tower Complex, Toronto
- Tugendhat House - Residential Home, Brno
- United States Post Office Loop Station - General Post Office, Chicago
- Urbig House - Residential Home, Potsdam
- Werner House - Residential Home, Zehlendorf
- Weissenhof Estate - Housing Exhibition coordinated by Mies and with a contribution by him, Stuttgart
- Westmount Square - Office & Residential Tower Complex, Westmount
