ARCHITECTURE MONOGRAPHS

Mies

This film opens with a view of a construction site for the replica of the Barcelona Pavilion that was constructed for the 1986 centennial of the architect. The original Barcelona Pavilion was Mies' European masterpiece and established him as among the greatest architects of the era. Later, his work in America would elevate his stature even further, as he became one of the most respected and imitated architects of all time. Mies was uncompromising in his pursuit of architectural perfection, which he believed was embodied by a painstaking effort to express clearly an abstract concept. In the film James Ingo Freed explains: "Mies always felt he was waging a war on the modern movement for the soul of the modern movement. He reduced his buildings to the absolute Platonic, pure minimum evocation of the idea."

Mies was born in 1886 in Aachen, Germany. His father was a master stonemason, and Mies very early on apprenticed as a bricklayer. His background and early work experiences supplied him with a lifelong appreciation for building materials. In 1905, at age 19, he moved to Berlin where he worked in the studio of Bruno Paul. His first commission was for a suburban residence for Professor Alois Riehl, which earned him the following praise from Paul: "The house has only one thing wrong with it that I didn¹t build it!"1

Peter Behrens, one of the notable architects of that era, with a small office in Neubabelsberg later hired Mies to work in his office. In this environment Mies was introduced to the work of the great 19th century German architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, as well as the influential Dutch architect H.P. Berlage, both of whom had a strong impact on his own work for their adherence to classical simplicity and clarity. In 1914 he opened his own practice in the Berlin borough of Steglitz, where for the next few years he designed residences in and around the city.

After the chaos and horror of World War I, artists and architects embraced the concept of a Utopian society - ordered and structured, with architecture, or the New Architecture, playing an important role. In 1919 the Bauhaus was established in Dresden. Mies was swept up in the movement, wrote statements and essays for avant garde periodicals and designed visionary buildings. In 1925 he was enlisted, along with other influential architects, to design and construct the Weissenhofsiedlung Housing Colony in Stuttgart. A few years later the government hired him to design the German Pavilion for the Barcelona World¹s Fair. This project put into practice the clarity espoused by the adherents of Utopia, with its reflecting pools, chrome plated columns and clean lines. Mies commented "This is a skeleton, the Barcelona Pavilion. It has only a base and a roof and a few columns and all the walls are no building walls and it gave a new space idea the floating space."

The Tugendhat House in Brno, Czcechoslovakia, was his last architectural commission in Europe, and further explored Mies's ideas about architecture, as well as furniture design. The house is based upon a skeletal framework, much like that of the Barcelona Pavilion. Reference to this earlier work was also repeated in the central area, which contained an onyx wall that functioned symbolically as a domestic altar or fireplace. Shortly after finishing this commission he accepted an appointment to the directorship of the Bauhaus where he imposed his concept of strict discipline on the students. Closed in 1932 by the Nazis, the Bauhaus was moved to Berlin briefly as Mies¹s own private school before it was closed again. In 1937 Mies was invited by clients Helen and Stanley Resor to visit the site of a residential commission in Jackson Hole Wyoming. Due to the ever increasingly hostile political environment in Germany, Mies decided to close his office in Berlin and emigrate to America. In 1938 he accepted an appointment to become Director of the School of Architecture at the Armour Institute of Technology (AIT), which would soon become the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). In 1940 Mies was asked to redesign the campus the first campus designed entirely in a modern style. The result of eight years of effort was a new model for urban design, in which open space flowed in and around campus buildings. He made use of the steel sections coming out of the mills of South Chicago and Indiana and explored the potential of steel I-beams and H-columns. The IIT remains the ultimate "Miesian" Academy in design as well as curriculum.

In the 1940's Mies investigated his concepts of "universal space". These concerns centered around a hall that would be open and flexible enough to accommodate any function. The Farnsworth House (Plano, IL), completed in 1951, realized Mies¹s goal of a versatile structure, uniting universal space with steel structure. With its references to a classical temple, the Farnsworth House best exemplifies the rebirth of the classic spirit in modern architecture.

In 1946 he met real estate developer Herbert Greenwald, who commissioned Mies' first large-scale commercial work, the high-rise towers of 860-880 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. These structures were built on plinths that separated the towers from the surrounding cityscape. With their steel-frame structure and glass-infill skin, the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive buildings typified the modern skyscraper. His use of non-essential I-beam mullions, he later explained served "to preserve and extend the rhythm of the exterior." His placement of the buildings at right angles with each other (partially due to the proviso that the structures not block views of the lake) became known as a Miesian complex generally composed of an open precinct with the buildings lining the street. In the film Mies noted the importance of the relationship between structures: "In architecture the proportions aren¹t always the proportions of the things themselves. Often the proportions between the things there's nothing but still there¹s the proportions."

Samuel Bronfman, president of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons announced in 1954 that the company would construct a new headquarters on Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Street. Phyllis Lambert, Bronfman¹s daughter upon reviewing the building plans reminded him that he had intended to build an important building. In response she was put her in charge of finding an architect. She commissioned Mies to build the headquarters. He approached the project by carefully studying Park Avenue; by walking its blocks and by constructing cardboard models of the neighborhood. His final design comprised a sheer tower set back from the street, with an open plaza at the entrance, which served to open up the city¹s façade.

In 1962 Mies was invited by the Berlin Senate to design the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. This building, with its clear-span space and classical temple design, reminiscent of Schinkel, is the culmination of a vision developed over a lifetime. The hall is entirely walled in glass, with a 26' height. The roof is constructed of a grid of web girders and rests on eight columns. The hall was designed to exhibit temporary exhibits, while the podium housed the administrative offices and permanent collection. The Neue Nationalgalerie is Mies¹ final statement for his homeland.

Endnotes

1. Schulze, Franz. Mies van der Rohe, A Critical Biography, The University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 24.