Editors: Ana Tostões, Zara Ferreira
Guest editors: Christian Raabe, Daniel Lohmann, Norbert Hanenberg
Keywords: Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe, International Style, Rehabilitation of modern architecture.
Mies enjoyed great prominence in Europe and America. Starting in Europe, his first incursions resulted in the German Pavilion for the Barcelona International Exhibition (1929), the Tugendhat House (1930) and the Krefeld silk factory and houses. The Illinois Institute of Technology (1943-1957), the Lake Shore Drive (1951), the Farnsworth House (1951), the Seagram building (1958) and the Toronto-Dominion Centre (1969), bear witness to his work in North America. Back in Berlin, The Neue Nationalgalerie (1968) testifies to the sublime and perfect achievement of his path towards Baukunst and Zeitwille. These ideas, which one may translate, respectively, as the art of building and the will of the time, are anchored in the Mies’s belief that architecture should be metaphysically charged with creative life force. This led him to the modern achievement of developing a new kind of freedom of movement in space, following his sense of order and his very unique conception of urban space.
Published:
2017-04-01
Editorial
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Mies enjoyed great prominence in Europe and America. Starting in Europe, his first incursions resulted in the German Pavilion for the Barcelona International Exhibition (1929), the Tugendhat House (1930) and the Krefeld silk factory and houses. The Illinois Institute of Technology (1943-1957), the Lake Shore Drive (1951), the Farnsworth House (1951), the Seagram building (1958) and the Toronto-Dominion Centre (1969), bear witness to his work in North America. Back in Berlin, The Neue Nationalgalerie (1968) testifies to the sublime and perfect achievement of his path towards Baukunst and...
Essays
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's personal and professional connections to his hometown Aachen in Germany are mostly unknown today. Through the analysis of both old and new written and graphic sources, the authors give an insight into Mies van der Rohe's lifelong bond to his hometown. In the personal friendships, his friends Ferdinand Goebbels and Franz Dominick play a key role. Furthermore, the paper presents previously unknown buildings that young Mies was working on in the office of Albert Schneiders around 1905. One of the buildings, the house “Zur Neuen Welt” for client Joseph Oeben, is...
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Although the buildings for the Verseidag silk factory, in Krefeld, Germany, are the only factory buildings that Mies van der Rohe ever planned and built (1931-38), many open questions remain about the history and development of the site. The paper presents new research results on the architectural history and materiality of the site that are derived from detailed documentation on site and analysis of newly available archive material. The scientific results and the acquired knowledge directly influence the current restoration of the buildings, in which the key characteristics designed by...
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In the few written sources about Mies van der Rohe’s Krefeld silk factory, Verseidag (1930–1938), the urban layout and building design have been repeatedly compared with his Campus master plan for the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (IIT) (1939–41). New research based on rediscovered plan material from Krefeld allow for a detailed description of the historic development of the Verseidag plant, including the identification of master plans, later deviations and their abandonment. With this knowledge, a substantial comparison of the two projects may be established that shows...
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Mies 1:1 The Golf Club Project (Krefeld, Germany, May-October 2013) was an exhibition consisting of an architectural model on a 1:1 scale which could be viewed and accessed physically. Christiane Lange and the initiative Projekt MIK e.V. built the model together with Ghent-based architects Robbrecht en Daem according to the plans for the clubhouse at Krefeld Golf Club. These were drawn up by Mies van der Rohe in 1930, but never implemented. This article depicts the development and the course of the project as well as the conceptional involvement of the participants within the context of...
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Following a thorough and pioneering conservation-science study, the Tugendhat House was restored between 2010 and 2012. The house of Greta and Fritz Tugendhat, in Brno, designed by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich (1928-1929), is the single example of modern architecture in the Czech Republic inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites. After an intense and dramatic life with different uses, the house received an outstanding restoration which brought back its original form, space and materiality, and was opened to the public as a House-Museum. This paper aims to bring...
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The German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition was part of a much larger exhibiting sequence, which Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich constructed following their main undertaking in the Barcelona industrial exhibits: to design the entire German section. By the time Mies van der Rohe started the project of the German Pavilion, he had already been working for more than 4 months on the construction of the identity and representation of the strength of the German industrial fabric, which he would architecturally express in the interior design of 8 neoclassical palaces....
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This essay documents the research of restoration and modifications to Mies van der Rohe’s masterwork, Crown Hall, the heart of the Chicago campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Restoration was necessitated by 5 decades of use during which the building had fallen into major disrepair. During the restoration, practical and philosophical issues arose from the building’s landmark designation by regional and national authorities. The essay describes the forensic research that preceded design, investigation and selection of alternate materials modifications to the building envelope....
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Perhaps no building designed by Mies van der Rohe better exemplifies his dictum, “less is more”, than Carr Chapel. Its rectangular prismatic form and unadorned architecture led to its being called “the God Box” by the students it served at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). When a building is so simple and direct, every little detail needs to understood and attended to with great care in its conservation treatment. Combined with a chronic lack of funding, a seemingly simple project can become quite challenging and take over a decade to complete.
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After 46 years of continuous use, Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin closed its doors to start works on its refurbishment. Being a masterpiece of the second half of the 20th century, conventional standards in terms of dealing with high-level heritage must be adhered to. The quality of this refurbishment can be found in the project’s holistic approach. Not only by taking into account the visual integrity but also by paying attention to its physical substance, time-bound and classical elements, the added value of the project is created.
Interviews
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In June 2017, Ana Tostões interviewed Fritz Neumeyer, reference expert on Mies van der Rohe, in order to discuss the importance of Mies’s legacy. Neumeyer conducted a deep research on Mies's writings and intellectual activity that has resulted in the worldwide renowned publication Mies van der Rohe. Das kunstlose Wort. Gedanken zur Baukunst [The Artless Word: Mies Van der Rohe on the Building Art] (Berlin, 1986; Cambridge/London, 1991; Madrid/Paris/Milan, 1996; Seoul 2007 — see p. 93) offering a precursor critical anthology of Mies theoretical corpus.
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On the 15th February 2018, in New York City, Ana Tostões interviewed Jong Soung Kimm, an internationally renowned architect and educator, a collaborator at the office of Mies van der Rohe (1961–1972) and design studio teacher at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (1966–1978). He is founder and honorary president of SAC(Seoul Architects Consultants) International Ltd.
Introduction
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Mies van der Rohe’s built work covers a timeframe of over 60 years, including two world wars and several revolutionary events in the history of architecture. The extraordinary architect has influenced 20th century architecture worldwide like few others have. In the context of several restoration projects, the time has come to review the condition of his buildings: Is their materiality as timeless as their appearance? Did his constructions, which are of sometimes an experimental nature, prove to be sustainable, or did they fall into disrepair? How can Mies van der Rohe buildings be...
News
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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...
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At the occasion of the "àth anniversary of the birth of Mies van der Rohe, on 27 March 2016, the exhibition Mies & The Inheritance of Modernism was opened on 10 April 2016, in SCHUNCK*, Heerlen, The Netherlands. The project was focused entirely on the re-evaluation of the modernist architectural heritage. The central question which led the whole project was: how much do we value the inheritance of modernism and how should we deal with it? The exhibition was contextualized by an international program in which symposia, lectures, film screenings, excursions and guided tours provided...
