LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE

Introduction:

• Born in Aachen, Germany on 27 Mar. 1886
• Trained with his father, a master stonemason
• Worked in the family stone-carving business
• At 19, he moved to Berlin before he joined the office of Bruno Paul in Berlin (the art nouveau architect and furniture designer)
• At 20 he received his first independent commission,
  to plan a house for a philosopher (Alois Riehl)
• Entered the studio of Peter beherns in 1908 and remained until 1912
• Opened his own office in Berlin in 1912 and married in 1913

Inspirations:

• Dutch Architecture
  • 17th century interiors – crystal clear with precisely framed walls and openings
  • Had an inner affinity with Mies’s balancing of plane surfaces
• Father’s Workshop
  • Correct placing of brick upon brick and stone upon stone
  • These early experiences probably the reason for his fanaticism with pure form and great care in the use of building materials
  • 1909 – Turbinen Fabrik – showed the strength of expression possessed by iron and glass
  • Could be brought out by an artist/architect who understood their possibilities
  • Also learnt careful handling of new materials, particularly in his later works
  • Free ground plan
• Expressionist Movement
  • Art Nouveau – Gaudi’s expressionism – biomorphic and osteomorphic fantasy
  • German movement – mysticism; emotional extremes in art
  • W.W. I – economic deprivation – 1918-21 + following years
  • Almost nothing built – a world of imagination and fantasy
  • Crystalline, prismatic forms
  • Mies – 1919-21 – glass walled skyscrapers
  • Prismatic, star shaped massing to reflect light like a crystal
  • Foreshadowed his glass walled skyscrapers

• Peter Behrens
  • 1909 – Turbinen Fabrik – showed the strength of expression possessed by iron and glass
  • Could be brought out by an artist/architect who understood their possibilities
  • Also learnt careful handling of new materials, particularly in his later works
• F.L. Wright
  • Free ground plan

Biography:

• Studied the architecture of the  Prussian Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Frank Lloyd Wright
• After world war I – began studying the skyscraper
• Designed two innovative steel-framed towers
  encased in glass
• One of them – Friedrichstrasse skyscraper, designed in 1921 for a competition
• Never built, although it drew critical praise and foreshadowed his skyscraper designs of the late 40s and 50s

Statements:

• Less is more
• I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good
• Technology’s essence is the main field of architecture

CASE STUDY ONE: GERMAN PAVILION, INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION, BARCELONA, SPAIN, 1929.

General features:

• No function other than to look worthy of the country it represents
• Honey coloured golden onyx, green Tinian marble and frosted glass were the basic materials used
• Had a sculpture named the German flag
• Starting of the modern movement

CASE STUDY TWO: FARNSWORTH HOUSE, ILLINOIS, 1946-50:

General features:

• The house is situated in the midst of meadows and trees on a large natural plot.
• Principle of minimalism
• Floods and insects were main problems tackled
• A vacation residence for a doctor
• One enters the home by climbing a low, broad set of stairs to a sparse deck, then another, similar set of stairs to the outdoor porch

CASE STUDY THREE: Seagram Building, New York, 1954-58:

General features:

• The Seagram Building is a skyscraper in New York City
• In collaboration with the American Philip Johnson
• It is 516 feet tall with 38 stories
• It stands as one of the finest examples of the functionalist aesthetic and a masterpiece of corporate modernism

“I remember seeing many old buildings in my hometown when I was young. Few of them were important buildings. They were mostly very simple, but very clear. I was impressed by the strength of these buildings because they did not belong to any epoch. They had been built there for over a thousand years and were still impressive and nothing could change that. All great styles passed, but…they were still as good as on the day they were built.”           – Mies Van Der Rohe.

CASE STUDY 4: S.R.CROWN HALL

General details:

• S. R. Crown Hall is generally considered to be one of Mies’ greatest works
• Mies considered Crown the clearest statement of his philosophy of a universal space building.
• Crown is home to IIT’s College of Architecture; inside the building, free-standing partitions suggest spaces for studios and exhibition.
• the building houses the architecture school
• The wings to the east and west. It is a Upper Core is organized about an axis that runs north/south, with no Permanent partitions or formal separation of spaces. The building itself is organized on two floors, with the main floor raised about 6 feet above grade to allow natural light and ventilation into the lower level through clerestory windows.
• creating symmetrical  single open hall
• oak-wood partitions
• Built of hollow clay tile, the chases are finished in plaster painted white.
• Circulation consists of a hallway that is U-shaped in plan

INFERENCES:

• His love for simplicity
• Trying out innovative materials
• Structural details
• Spending lot of time on design
• Glass and steel
• Furniture details(layouts)

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