Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohen 659

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohen was born in Aachen, Germany, in 1886, and lived all the way through to 1969. He was considered a pioneer of glass skyscrapers. He also liked to design tubular-steel furniture, like his famous "Barcelona chair", used in the Barcelona Pavilion, another of his great works. He became a professor of architecture in Chicago, where he designed two glass apartment towers on Lake Shore Drive, around 1956.

His greatest work is considered to be the Barcelona Pavilion, which in its original form was only a temporary building, meant for the Barcelona World fair. When the fair ended, it was supposedly shipped back to Germany, but lost in transit. Although many people praise it as the "greatest work of Modern Architecture", most of them have only seen it in pictures or photographs(although one architecture firm reproduced the pavilion, in cheaper materials, for use as their office !). But a peculiar thing about this building is that when it was introduced in the Barcelona world fair, it did not contain exhibits, it only contained chairs, tables and stools designed by Rohe. It also contained a statue, called the "Kolbe", near a small pool. . He intended the structure to act as the exhibit itself, representing the "new thinking in Germany under the Weimar Republic"(Evans, 57). Most people didn't understand it. J

What made it so unique ? Mies realized that the wall could be independent of the weight of the roof, so he designed 8 colums that would carry the weight of the roof, but the walls did carry some of the weight. This is where the pavilion received some criticism, with people saying that he "get rid of those damned little posts interfering with his lovely design"(Evans, 58).

The other element of the pavilion is the Kolbe, which seems was put there because Mies was anxious to present his work. It was created by Lehmbruck.(Speyer, 54)

The Kolbe, designed by Lehmbruck

Mies was considered a very simple person, whose philosophy was "not to design Buildings, but to develop them". In his own words :"I want things to be simple. Mind you: a simple person is not a simpleton.

I like simplicity, probably because I like clarity, not because of cheapness or something like that. We never think of reducing cost when we work." Most people consider that his buildings owed more to technology and financial resources than his creativity. But here's an article that(I think) proves this wrong :

From Peter Carter's, "Mies van der Rohe, An Appreciation on the Occasion, This Month, of His 75th Birthday," Architectural Design 31 (March 1961):97(found in the internet at http://www2.architecturaldesign.com)

... "Fuchs asked Mies if he would comment on a design for the monument . Mies did, and after some time he observed that the monument's neo-classical design would be expensive to construct and appeared antithetic to the two communists' beliefs. Fuchs agreed. So Mies designed a thick wall and constructed it of bricks which had been fired too long or at too high a temperature. Because these bricks were rough and irregular, they cost nothing--only the effort of carting them away."

"We must remember," he wrote, "that everything depends upon how we use a material, not on the material itself."

In 1960, Mies was awarded the American institute of Architects' Gold medal for distinguished service to the profession. A few years before his death, he spoke these words to his students :

(From "Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, [Acceptance Speech upon receiving the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects,] Journal of the AmericanArchitects 33" (June 1965): 90-91, found in the internet)

"We are not at the end, but at the beginning of an epoch; an epoch which will be guided by a new spirit, which will be driven by new forces, new technological, sociological and economic forces, and which will have new tools and new materials. For this reason we will have a new architecture."