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