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ART HISTORY - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the American Skyline
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the American Skyline
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969). The spare, refined architecture of Mies van der Rohe, built on his edict that "Less is more," is synonymous with the modern movement and the International Style. He has arguably had a greater impact on the skylines of American cities than any other architect. His contribution lies in the ultimate refinement of the basic forms of the International Style, resulting in some of its most famous examples.
Some of the major influences on Mies were his father, a master mason from whom he initially gained his respect for craft skills; then Peter Behrens, in whose atelier he worked for three years; and Frank Lloyd Wright. From Wright, Mies gained his appreciation for the open, flowing plan and for the predominant horizontality of his earlier buildings. He was affected not only by Behrens's famous turbine factory, but also by Gropius's 1911 Fagus Factory, with its complete statement of the glass curtain wall. Gropius had been in Behrens's office between 1907 and 1910, and the association between Gropius and Mies that began there, despite a certain rivalry, continued.
Mies's style remained almost conventionally Neoclassical until after World War I. Then, in the midst of the financial and political turmoil of postwar Germany, he plunged into the varied and hectic experimentation that characterized the Berlin School. After 1919 most of the new ideas fermenting in the arts during the war began to converge on Berlin, which became one of the world capitals for art and architecture. These ideas included German Expressionism, Russian Suprematism and Constructivism, Dutch de Stijl, and international Dadaism. Contact was re-established between German artists and French Cubists and Italian Futurists. The Bauhaus school created by Gropius at Weimar in 1919 was in continuous and close contact with Berlin.
In 1921 and 1922, Mies completed two designs for skyscrapers, which, although never built, established the basis of his reputation. One was triangular in plan, the second a free-form plan of undulating curves. In these he proposed the boldest use yet envisaged of a reflective, all-glass sheathing suspended on a central core. As Mies wrote, "Only in the course of their construction do skyscrapers show their bold, structural character, and then the impression made by their soaring skeletal frames is overwhelming. On the other hand, when the facades are later covered with masonry, this impression is destroyed and the constructive character denied... The structural principle of these buildings becomes clear when one uses glass to cover non-loadbearing walls. The use of glass forces us to new ways." No comparably daring design for a skyscraper was to be envisaged for thirty or forty years. Because there was no real indication of either the structural system or the disposition of interior space, these projects still belonged in the realm of visionary architecture, but they were prophetic projections of the skyscraper.
Mies's other unrealized projects of the early 1920s included two designs for country houses, both in 1923, the first in brick and the second in concrete. The brick country-house design so extended the open pian made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright that the freestanding walls no longer enclose rooms: They create spaces that flow into one another. Mies fully integrated the interior and exterior spaces. As is clear from the plan, two of the walls extend from inside the house to the exterior, running right off the page and defying any sense of traditional enclosure. The plan of this house, drawn with the utmost economy and elegance, and the abstract organization of planar slabs in the elevation exemplify Mies's debt to the principles of de Stijl. In fact, the plan has often been compared to the composition of a 1918 painting by Mies's friend Theo van Doesburg.
One of the last works executed by Mies in Europe, before the rise of Nazism limited his activity and then forced his migration to the United States, was the German Pavilion for the Barcelona International Exposition in 1929. Mies was in charge of Germany's entire contribution to the Exposition. The "Barcelona Pavilion," destroyed at the end of the exposition, has become one of the classics of Mies's career and perhaps the pre-eminent example of the International Style. Here was the most complete statement to date of all the qualities of refinement, simplification, and elegance of scale and proportion that Mies, above all others, brought to modern architecture. In this building he contrasted the richness of highly polished marble wall slabs with the chrome-sheathed slender columns supporting the broad, overhanging flat roof. Thus, the walls are designed to define space rather than support the structure. In a realization of the open plan he had designed for the brick country house, the marble and glass interior walls stood free, serving simply to define space. But in contrast to the earlier work, the architect put limits on the space of pavilion and court by enclosing them in end walls. This definition of free-flowing interior space within a total rectangle was to become a signature style for Mies in his later career. The pavilion was furnished with chairs (known as the Barcelona chair), stools, and glass tables designed only by Mies. In the Barcelona Pavilion, Mies demonstrated that the International Style had come of age, had come to a maturity that permitted comparison with the great styles of the past. Fortunately, in 1986, to celebrate the centenary of the artist's birth, the pavilion was completely reconstructed in Barcelona according to the original plans.
Mies became director of the Bauhaus in 1930 but had little opportunity to advance its program. After moving from Dessau to Berlin in that year, the school suffered increasing pressure from the Nazis until it was finally closed in 1933. In 1937, with less and less opportunity to practice, Mies left for the United States, where in the last decades of his life he was able to fulfill, in a number of great projects, the promise apparent in the relatively few buildings he actually built in Europe.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969). The spare, refined architecture of Mies van der Rohe, built on his edict that "Less is more," is synonymous with the modern movement and the International Style. He has arguably had a greater impact on the skylines of American cities than any other architect. His contribution lies in the ultimate refinement of the basic forms of the International Style, resulting in some of its most famous examples.Some of the major influences on Mies were his father, a master mason from whom he initially gained his respect for craft skills; then Peter Behrens, in whose atelier he worked for three years; and Frank Lloyd Wright. From Wright, Mies gained his appreciation for the open, flowing plan and for the predominant horizontality of his earlier buildings. He was affected not only by Behrens's famous turbine factory, but also by Gropius's 1911 Fagus Factory, with its complete statement of the glass curtain wall. Gropius had been in Behrens's office between 1907 and 1910, and the association between Gropius and Mies that began there, despite a certain rivalry, continued.
Mies's style remained almost conventionally Neoclassical until after World War I. Then, in the midst of the financial and political turmoil of postwar Germany, he plunged into the varied and hectic experimentation that characterized the Berlin School. After 1919 most of the new ideas fermenting in the arts during the war began to converge on Berlin, which became one of the world capitals for art and architecture. These ideas included German Expressionism, Russian Suprematism and Constructivism, Dutch de Stijl, and international Dadaism. Contact was re-established between German artists and French Cubists and Italian Futurists. The Bauhaus school created by Gropius at Weimar in 1919 was in continuous and close contact with Berlin.
In 1921 and 1922, Mies completed two designs for skyscrapers, which, although never built, established the basis of his reputation. One was triangular in plan, the second a free-form plan of undulating curves. In these he proposed the boldest use yet envisaged of a reflective, all-glass sheathing suspended on a central core. As Mies wrote, "Only in the course of their construction do skyscrapers show their bold, structural character, and then the impression made by their soaring skeletal frames is overwhelming. On the other hand, when the facades are later covered with masonry, this impression is destroyed and the constructive character denied... The structural principle of these buildings becomes clear when one uses glass to cover non-loadbearing walls. The use of glass forces us to new ways." No comparably daring design for a skyscraper was to be envisaged for thirty or forty years. Because there was no real indication of either the structural system or the disposition of interior space, these projects still belonged in the realm of visionary architecture, but they were prophetic projections of the skyscraper.
Mies's other unrealized projects of the early 1920s included two designs for country houses, both in 1923, the first in brick and the second in concrete. The brick country-house design so extended the open pian made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright that the freestanding walls no longer enclose rooms: They create spaces that flow into one another. Mies fully integrated the interior and exterior spaces. As is clear from the plan, two of the walls extend from inside the house to the exterior, running right off the page and defying any sense of traditional enclosure. The plan of this house, drawn with the utmost economy and elegance, and the abstract organization of planar slabs in the elevation exemplify Mies's debt to the principles of de Stijl. In fact, the plan has often been compared to the composition of a 1918 painting by Mies's friend Theo van Doesburg.
One of the last works executed by Mies in Europe, before the rise of Nazism limited his activity and then forced his migration to the United States, was the German Pavilion for the Barcelona International Exposition in 1929. Mies was in charge of Germany's entire contribution to the Exposition. The "Barcelona Pavilion," destroyed at the end of the exposition, has become one of the classics of Mies's career and perhaps the pre-eminent example of the International Style. Here was the most complete statement to date of all the qualities of refinement, simplification, and elegance of scale and proportion that Mies, above all others, brought to modern architecture. In this building he contrasted the richness of highly polished marble wall slabs with the chrome-sheathed slender columns supporting the broad, overhanging flat roof. Thus, the walls are designed to define space rather than support the structure. In a realization of the open plan he had designed for the brick country house, the marble and glass interior walls stood free, serving simply to define space. But in contrast to the earlier work, the architect put limits on the space of pavilion and court by enclosing them in end walls. This definition of free-flowing interior space within a total rectangle was to become a signature style for Mies in his later career. The pavilion was furnished with chairs (known as the Barcelona chair), stools, and glass tables designed only by Mies. In the Barcelona Pavilion, Mies demonstrated that the International Style had come of age, had come to a maturity that permitted comparison with the great styles of the past. Fortunately, in 1986, to celebrate the centenary of the artist's birth, the pavilion was completely reconstructed in Barcelona according to the original plans.
Mies became director of the Bauhaus in 1930 but had little opportunity to advance its program. After moving from Dessau to Berlin in that year, the school suffered increasing pressure from the Nazis until it was finally closed in 1933. In 1937, with less and less opportunity to practice, Mies left for the United States, where in the last decades of his life he was able to fulfill, in a number of great projects, the promise apparent in the relatively few buildings he actually built in Europe.
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