Mies van der Rohe. The MoMA Collages: Exhibition at Ludwig Forum

Exhibition at Ludwig Forum

Abstract

Mies van der Rohe is generally known as the architect of icons of modern architecture like the Barcelona Pavilion, Farnsworth House or the Seagram Building. What – until now – was less known, is the fact that many of his unbuilt designs survived on paper. Not just in drawings and plans, but in a more vivid medium: the collage. In cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art in New York the Ludwig Forum in Aachen, the town Mies was born in 1886, has shown 50 Mies van der Rohe collages and montages in an extraordinary exhibition. It was the first time ever that an exhibition was dedicated to that chapter of Mies van der Rohe’s oeuvre and the first time that those works were on display all together.There was too much to be seen, too many interesting aspects to talk about, which can’t be handled in such a short review. It is therefore very pleasing that the associated catalog, written by noted researchers and the curators, makes an important contribution to current Mies van der Rohe research concerning his collages and montages. Maybe one would have expected to find the collages and montages combined with the built work of Mies van der Rohe, but the director, Andreas Beitin, and his team had something different in mind. As Mies van der Rohe dealt with art throughout his whole life why not connect the collages with art and artists that surrounded and influenced him as well as artists who were influenced by him and his work?