Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig (1886–1969). German architect, one of the most influential of
International Modernism. Without any formal architectural education, he went to Berlin in 1905 to work for Bruno
Paul. In the following year he designed the Riehl House at Neubabelsberg near Berlin (completed 1907), which drew on the English
Arts-and-Crafts style promoted by
Muthesius in
Das Englische Haus (1904–5). In 1908 he joined the atelier of
Behrens, where he met
Gropius and Adolf
Meyer, among others, and absorbed something of Behrens's style, mingled with a strong flavour of the severe architecture of
Schinkel, Behrens's hero. Several suburban villas followed, including the Perls (later Fuchs) House, Zehlendorf, Berlin (1911), in which the precedent of Schinkel's domestic architecture was clear. He also designed a monument (unrealized) to Bismarck for a rocky promontory at Bingen-am-Rhein, which anticipated the
stripped Classicism of
Speer later in C20. Indeed, from 1911 his designs were influenced by Behrens's interest in a simplified
Classicism, as displayed at Behrens's Imperial German Embassy, St Petersburg, Russia (1911–12—which Mies supervised). On his own account Mies (as he then was) worked on a project for the Kröller-Müller House and Gallery, The Hague, The Netherlands (1912–13), which was influenced by Schinkel's work at Potsdam and Glienicke and by F. L.
Wright's designs which were known through Wasmuth's publications (notably of 1910) and the 1911 exhibition. In 1912 he established his own Berlin practice (even though the Kröller-Müller project fell through) and designed three houses in a stripped
Neo-Classical style (house at Heerstrasse, Berlin (1913), Urbig House, Neubabelsberg (1914), and Mies House, Werder (1914) ). Even the Kempner House, Berlin (1920—de-stroyed), had stylistic similarities to the prewar houses, but had a flat roof and an arched
loggia (again influenced by Schinkel's
Italianate round-arched style).
After the 1914–18 war, when the political climate in Germany had shifted Leftwards, Gropius organized (1919) an exhibition of architecture considered suitable for the new era. Mies submitted his 1912–13 Kröller-Müller designs which Gropius (a convinced believer in the
tabula rasa) refused to accept because of its clear links to historical precedent. The result was a transformation: Mies (which has connotations with what is seedy, wretched, and out of sorts, though its cuddly pussy-cat associations were preferred in the UK) became Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (which sounds vaguely grand (the pretentious ‘van der’) as well as having allusions to bareness, rawness, and roughness (his mother's name was Rohe) ); and the new Mies van der Rohe emerged as a radical Leftist
Modernist. He joined the
Novembergruppe (1921), becoming its President in 1923. His ‘Five Projects’ of the period (1921–3) included the unrealized glass-clad Friedrichstrasse Office Block, published by Bruno
Taut. Then followed the design for a Glass Skyscraper (1922), the Concrete Office Block (1922—one of the first designs to have the
International-style strip- or ribbon-window arrangement), the Brick Country House (1923— influenced by van
Doesburg and De
Stijl in its composition of cubic volumes), and the Concrete Country House (1923—designed for a sloping site and with a plan resembling a swastika cross). The last project had powerfully emphasized overhanging horizontals reminiscent of Wright's work, counterbalanced by the big vertical block of the chimney, while the configuration of the L- and T-plan-shapes of the walls of the Brick Country House is one of the first instances of walls being disposed according to the principles of De Stijl composition. In 1923 he exhibited at a show of De Stijl work in Paris, and made contact with the protagonists of Russian
Constructivism and
Suprematism. He also exhibited in Berlin and Weimar (in the latter case at the invitation of Gropius, who was mollified by Mies's conversion to the cause). Nevertheless, he was still designing suburban houses in his prewar Arts-and-Crafts and Neo-Classical modes, a fact that was carefully concealed in later hagiographies.
With
Bartning,
Behrendt,
Häring,
Mendelsohn,
Poelzig, the
Tauts, and others, he formed Der
Ring, which rapidly became a nationwide organization to reject all historical allusions and styles and to prepare the ground for an architecture of the new epoch supposedly to be based (or to look as though it was based) on contemporary technology. In 1926 Mies designed the monument (destroyed 1933) to the Socialist and Spartacist
Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919), the Polish Communist agitator
Rosa Luxemburg (1870–1919), and the November 1918 Revolution in the Friedrichsfelde Friedhof, Berlin: of brick projecting and receding planes on which the hammer and sickle were predominantly displayed, it was nevertheless based on a steel-framed construction (so much for ‘honesty’ of expression in building). In the same year he designed the Wolf House, Guben (destroyed), where blocky masses of brick were pierced with windows, and all
Historicist references were expunged.
Mies and other members of Der Ring were elected to the
Deutscher Werkbund in 1926, which, as a result, shifted ground from its historical mission to promote good industrial design and crafts to become a bullying pressure-group promoting the ‘new architecture’, i.e. that approved by Mies and his circle. As Vice-President of the Werkbund and Director of the proposed
Weissenhofsiedlung Exhibition in Stuttgart (1927), he consolidated his reputation as leader of the avant-garde. The exhibition, for which he designed the master-plan and the long apartment-block on the highest land, contained temporary structures as well as over twenty permanent buildings, including villas, designed by leading German and other Modernists, including
Bourgeois, Le
Corbusier,
Oud, and
Stam. Predominant motifs were long horizontal strips of windows, smooth white walls, and flat roofs: the image of the cult of International Modernism had been found. Mies was also able to exhibit his tubular-steel chair, the earliest of several later variations that were to place him among the foremost furniture designers of C20. For the International Exposition, Barcelona (1928–9), shortly after he completed the Lange House, Krefeld, Mies designed the German Pavilion with a flat roof supported on steel columns clad in chromium-plated casings and walls of onyx and marble (some of which projected beyond the roof). This little building (demolished 1929, reconstructed 1983–4), exquisitely and expensively detailed, won immediate approval and became one of the most admired paradigms of the late 1920s. It was furnished with Mies's ‘Barcelona Chair’, consisting of a chromium-plated frame with black leather upholstered back and seat. Then followed the Tugendhat House, Brno, Czechoslovakia (1930), with a single storey on the street-frontage and two storeys facing the garden. The living-room was a continuous space with chromium-cased steel columns and free-standing panel, derived from the Barcelona design, while the full-height windows could be fully lowered out of sight, enabling the interior space to extend into the garden terrace. Every detail of the house was purpose-made, designed by the architect.
In 1930 Mies was appointed to run the Dessau
Bauhaus on Gropius's recommendation following the dismissal of Hannes
Meyer, and emphasized instruction within a more clearly-defined pedagogic structure, but the mayhem of mismanagement over the previous years had done the damage, and in 1932 the National Socialist majority in the Dessau Town Council closed the institution. Mies attempted to reconstitute the Bauhaus in a disused factory at Berlin-Steglitz, but it shut in 1933. It has been widely claimed that Mies left Germany because of Nazi hostility to his work, but Mies remained in Germany for five more years, and was one of the signatories of the Proclamation by leading German artists urging voters to support
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) following the death of President (from 1925)
Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934). Mies and Gropius both joined the Visual Arts section of the Nazi-sponsored Reich Culture Chamber, and submitted designs (predictably decorated with Swastikas) for architecture competitions; some Modernist designs for
Autobahn service stations by Mies were personally approved by Hitler. Indeed Mies attempted to show that Modernism was apolitical, but this was a complete reversal of his position a decade earlier, and his apostasy did not go unnoticed. However, it is becoming clear that Hitler (who was uninterested in tedious doctrinal disputes among architects) saw Modernism as suitable for factories, bridges, airports,
Autobahn structures, and so on, while a
stripped Neo-Classicism was to be used for State and Party purposes, (because of its austerity, power, and simplicity), and a
vernacular style for housing (especially in the country), a position not much differing from the official line in many other countries (including the democracies) of the period. Furthermore, Mies's gnomic remark that architecture is ‘the will of the epoch translated into space’ was used, almost verbatim, by Hitler, many of whose
ex cathedra sayings were very close to those spouted by the
Bauhäusler. It soon became apparent, however, that there was not going to be much architectural work in an economy geared increasingly to war, and Mies decided to leave Germany to pursue his career. In 1938 he settled in Chicago, IL, where he became Director of the Architecture Department of the Armour Institute (later Illinois Institute of Technology). From 1940 he redesigned the
campus and buildings, placing rectangular blocks on an overall grid, exposing the steel frames, and designing all the junctions with his customary meticulous care (he claimed ‘God is in the detail’). He invented a sophisticated language of metal-and-glass architecture, shown to best effect at the Farnsworth House, Fox River, Plano, IL (1946–50), in which the terrace-slab, floor-slab, and roof-slabs were all raised from the ground and carried on steel stanchions of I section. This open glass-sided pavilion idea with impeccable detailing was used by Mies on several occasions, e.g. Crown Hall, IIT, Chicago (1952–6), and the National Gallery, Tiergarten, Berlin (1962–8). The Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago (1950–1) had steel frames, while the huge Seagram Skyscraper, NYC (1954–8—with Philip
Johnson (who did much to promote the Authorized Version of Mies's careeer) and
Kahn & Jacobs), was clad in bronze and glass. Mies's influence cannot be overstated, and, with Le Corbusier and Gropius, he completed what might be regarded as the Trinity of Modernism. His impact worldwide is clear, and his metal-and-glass fronted buildings have been extensively (and often unintelligently) copied.
Bibliography
Bill (1955);
Blaser (1977, 1996, 1997);
P. Carter (1999);
J-L. Cohen (1996);
Cuito (ed.) (2002d);
Drexler (1960);
Glaeser (1977);
Hilbersheimer (1956);
Hitchcock & and P. Johnson (1995);
Hochman (ed.) (1989);
P. Johnson (1978);
Neumeyer (1991);
Riley & Bergdoll (eds.) (2002);
Safran (2001);
Schulze (1985, 1989);
Spotts (2002);
Weihsmann (1998);
Windisch-Hojnacki (1989);
Zukowsky (ed.) (1986, 1993, 1994);
Zukowsky et al. (eds.) (1987)
