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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture.

Mies sought to establish his own particular architectural style that could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for their own eras. He created his own twentieth-century 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, as also conducted by other modernist architects in the 1920s and 1930s such as Richard Neutra. Mies strove toward an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of unobstructed free-flowing open space. He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought an objective approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design, but was always concerned with expressing the spirit of the modern era. He is often associated with his fondness for the aphorisms, "less is more" and "God is in the details"

Barcelona Pavilion, Spain

PHOTOS BY MACIEJ JEŻYK
Photo Categories: structure, exterior, modernist

This building was used for the official opening of the German section of the exhibition. It is an important building in the history of modern architecture, known for its simple form and its spectacular use of extravagant materials, such as marble, red onyx and travertine. The same features of minimalism and spectacular can be applied to the prestigious furniture specifically designed for the building, including the iconic Barcelona chair. It has inspired many important modernist buildings.

The Pavilion was not only a pioneer for construction forms with a fresh, disciplined understanding of space, but also for modelling new opportunities for an association of free art and architecture. Mies placed Georg Kolbe's Alba ("Dawn") in the small water basin, leaving the larger one all the more empty. The sculpture also ties into the highly reflective materials Mies used—he chose the place where these optical effects would have the strongest impact; the building offers multiple views of Alba. "From now on, in the sense of equality for juxtaposing building and visual work, sculptures were no longer to be applied retrospectively to the building, but rather to be a part of the spatial design, to help define and interpret it. To the day, one of the most notable examples is the Barcelona Pavilion".

Farnsworth House, Illinois

PHOTOS BY LIZ CHILSEN
Photo Categories: exterior, mid-century building type, flat roofline, house building type

Between 1946 and 1951, Mies van der Rohe designed and built the Farnsworth House, a weekend retreat outside Chicago for an independent professional woman, Dr. Edith Farnsworth. Here, Mies explored the relationship between people, shelter, and nature. The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies.

The highly crafted pristine white structural frame and all-glass walls define a simple rectilinear interior space, allowing nature and light to envelop the interior space. A wood-paneled fireplace (also housing mechanical equipment, kitchen, and toilets) is positioned within the open space to suggest living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls. No partitions touch the surrounding all-glass enclosure. Without solid exterior walls, full-height draperies on a perimeter track allow freedom to provide full or partial privacy when and where desired. The house has been described as sublime, a temple hovering between heaven and earth, a poem, a work of art.

The Farnsworth House and its 60-acre (240,000 m2) wooded site was purchased at auction for US$7.5 million by preservation groups in 2004 and is now owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a public museum. The building influenced the creation of hundreds of modernist glass houses, most notably the Glass House by Philip Johnson, located near New York City and also now owned by the National Trust.

The house is an embodiment of Mies' mature vision of modern architecture for the new technological age: a single unencumbered space within a minimal "skin and bones" framework, a clearly understandable arrangement of architectural parts. His ideas are stated with clarity and simplicity, using materials that are configured to express their own individual character.

S. R. Crown Hall, Chicago

PHOTOS BY ARTURO DUARTE JR.
Photo Categories: exterior, mid-century building type, glass, steel

Mies van der Rohe designed several dozen buildings for the southern side Illinois Institute of Technology. Most of these structures employ a brick and glass infill system within an exposed steel frame. When he was given the opportunity to design Crown Hall in 1950, Mies deviated from the norm and built a totally different structure which no one had seen before.

Widely regarded as one of Mies van der Rohe's masterpieces, Crown Hall, completed in 1956, is one of the most architecturally significant buildings of the 20th century Modernist movement. Crown Hall is considered architecturally significant because Mies van der Rohe refined the basic steel and glass construction style, beautifully capturing simplicity and openness for endless new uses. Creating this openness was achieved by the building having a suspended roof, without the need for interior columns. This created a universal space that could be endlessly adapted to new uses. Typically, older buildings up to 1956 had columns to support the roof from caving in, but Crown Hall does not require them. While designing Crown Hall, Mies stayed true to his famous words, "less is more" and he considered the building to be the best embodiment of the maxim.

At the time of being built, the idea of providing a single large room for the school of architecture and city planning's 300 students was to be particularly workable, and for the student to not be isolated from others who may be further or less advanced in the course then he/she. Although, shortly after being built, Architects began to question the relevancy of Mie’s work. Many architects depicted Crown Hall as, "slipping beneath the waves of Lake Michigan to a watery grave." After a number of years, Crown Hall was seen as such a successful icon of modern architecture that it served as the foil for Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman's 1978 satirical collage titled “The Titanic”.