Mies Van Der Rohe 32531z

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) • Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) •

German architect.

• He was commonly referred to and addressed by his surname, Mies, by his colleagues, students, writers, and others. • Along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of MODERN ARCHITECTURE. • He created an influential 20th century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity and simplicity.

• His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. • He strived towards an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of freeflowing open space. • He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. • He is often associated with the saying “less is more" and “god is in the details". • Mies worked in his father's stone-carving shop and at several local design firms before he moved to Berlin ing the office of interior designer (furniture designer) Bruno Paul. • He began his architectural career as an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens from 1908 to 1912, where he was exposed to the current design theories and to progressive German culture, working alongside Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier.

He began his independent professional career deg upper class homes, ing the movement seeking a return to the purity of early Nineteenth Century Germanic domestic styles. • He ired the broad proportions, regularity of rhythmic elements, attention to the relationship of the manmade to nature, and compositions using simple cubic volumes of the early 19th century Prussian Neo-Classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

THEORIES FOLLOWED BY MIES 1.THEORY OF MINIMALISM • Term minimalism is used to describe a trend in design and architecture where in the subject is reduced to its necessary elements. • Minimalist design has been highly influenced by Japanese traditional design and architecture. • Architect Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe adopted the motto “LESS IS MORE "to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging the numerous necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity, by enlisting every element and detail to serve multiple visual and functional purposes (such as deg a floor to also serve as the radiator, or a massive fireplace to also house the bathroom).

2.FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION • Form follows function is a principle associated with Modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.

• MIES adopted—form follows function, moral principles, and celebrated industrial artifacts like steel water towers as brilliant and beautiful examples of plain, simple design integrity.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY • Mies van der Rohe made great waves in the late 1920’s with his “Refined Comfort” design philosophy. • His combined use of the modern; stainless steel, new technologies in welding and metalwork, with the traditional; opulent leather, tailored upholstery, to create truly innovative and exceptionally beautiful pieces. • His chair designed for the 1929 International Exhibition in Barcelona, Spain stands to be the iconic piece that many agree embodies all of his principals and philosophies in one masterpiece of design.

FURNITURE • designed modern furniture • using new industrial technologies >the Barcelona chair and table, >the Brno chair, and >the Tugendhat chair • His furniture is known for fine craftsmanship a mix of traditional luxurious fabrics like leather combined with modern chrome frames, and a distinct separation of the ing structure and the ed surfaces, often employing cantilevers to enhance the feeling of lightness created by delicate structural frames.

Barcelona chair

Brno chair,

Tugendhat chair

MIES VAN DER ROHE AND BAUHAUS ARCHITECTURE` •

The school existed in three German cities (Weimar from 1919 to 1925, Dessau from 1925 to 1932 and Berlin from 1932 to 1933), under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 until 1933, when the school was closed by its own leadership under pressure from the Nazi regime.

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The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography. Foyer of Bauhaus university

Mechanically opened windows

MIES VAN DER ROHE AS EDUCATOR • Mies believed that his architectural could be applied to design any type of modern building. • He set up a new education at the Department of Architecture of the Illinois Institute of technology in Chicago attitude by a three-stepeducation beginning with crafts of building leading to planning skills and finishing with theory of architecture. • allowed his students, both in school and his office, to develop derivative solutions for specific projects under his guidance. • Mies placed great importance on education of architects who could carry on his design principles. • He devoted a great deal of time and effort leading the architecture program at IIT.

• his achievements for an architecture created out of modern technology is known as High- Tech Architecture. • But while Mies' work had enormous influence and critical recognition, his approach failed to sustain a creative force as a style after his death and was eclipsed by the new wave of Post modernism by the 1980s. • He had hoped his architecture would serve as a universal model that could be easily imitated, but the aesthetic power of his best buildings proved impossible to match, instead resulting mostly in drab and uninspired structures.

• b/w 1946-1951 area - 60-acre (240,000 m2) •

Farnsworth House is considered among Mies's greatest works.

• outside Chicago for an independent professional woman, Dr. Edith Farnsworth. • explored the relationship between people, shelter, and nature. • Used industrial steel and glass materials to create an architecture of great emotional impact. • The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies. • A wood-ed fireplace is positioned within the open space to suggest living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls. • No partitions touch the surrounding all-glass enclosure. • Without solid exterior walls, full-height draperies on a perimeter track allow freedom to provide full or partial privacy when and where desired.

The house is an embodiment of Mies' mature vision of modern architecture for the new technological age: a single unencumbered space within a minimal "skin and bones" framework

VIEW OF FRANSWORTH HOUSE

INTERIOR AND FURNITURE OF FRANSWORTH HOUSE

2. Lake Shore Drive (TWIN TOWER) • Mies designed a series of four middle-income high-rise apartment buildings for developer Herb Greenwald: • The 860/880 (which was built between 1949 and 1951) and • 900-910 Lake Shore Drive towers on Chicago's Lakefront. • These towers, with façades of steel and glass, were radical departures from the typical residential brick apartment buildings of the time. • TOWERS are simple rectangular boxes with a non-hierarchical wall enclosure, raised on stilts above a glass enclosed lobby. • The lobby is set back from the perimeter columns, which were exposed around the perimeter of the building above, creating a modern arcade. • feeling of light, openness, and freedom of movement at the ground level that became the prototype for countless new towers designed both by Mies's office and his followers.

860-880 Lake Shore Drive

lake shore drive

Interior of lake shore drive

3.SEAGRAM BUILDING (1958) •

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The Seagram Building has become an icon of the growing power of the corporation, that defining institution of the 20th century. In a bold and innovative move, the architect chose to set the tower back from the property line to create a forecourt plaza and fountain on Park Avenue. Although now acclaimed and widely influential as an urban design feature, Mies had to convince Bronfman's bankers that a taller tower with significant "unused" open space at ground level would enhance the presence and prestige of the building. Mies' design included a bronze curtain wall with external H-shaped mullions that were exaggerated in depth beyond what was structurally necessary.

4.THE CROWN HALL BUILDING • One of Mies van der Rohe's last building erected on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus is Crown Hall, a superb example of his clear span designs. • The roof is suspended from the underside of four steel plate girders which in turn are carried by eight exterior steel columns. • These columns are spaced 60 feet apart with the roof cantilevered 20 feet at each end. • Crown Hall, in which architecture, city planning, and design are taught, has a symmetrical plan about its short axis. • Free-standing partitions at the height of the window muntins partially subdivide the space. • Only two enclosed service ducts interrupt the ceiling. • A pair of interior stairways leads to a basement level used for workshops, offices, toilet rooms, and mechanical equipment. .Natural ventilation is provided by louvers at floor level.

EXTERIOR , ENTRY FACADE

VIEW OF CROWN HALL BUILDING