Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (/miːs/ MEESS; German: [miːs]; born
Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
was a German-born American architect.[1] He was commonly
referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le
Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is regarded as
one of the pioneers of modernist architecture.

In the 1930s, Mies was the last director of the Bauhaus, a ground-
breaking school of modern art, design and architecture.[2] After
Nazism's rise to power, with its strong opposition to modernism
(leading to the closing of the Bauhaus itself), Mies emigrated to the
United States. He accepted the position to head the architecture school
at the Armour Institute of Technology (later the Illinois Institute of
Technology), in Chicago.

Mies sought to establish his own particular architectural style that

could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for their
own eras. The style he created made a statement with its extreme
Born Maria Ludwig Michael
clarity and simplicity. His mature buildings made use of modern
Mies
materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior
spaces, as also conducted by other modernist architects in the 1920s March 27, 1886
and 1930s such as Richard Neutra. Mies strove toward an architecture Aachen, Kingdom of
with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the Prussia, German
implied freedom of unobstructed free-flowing open space. He called Empire
his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought an objective Died August 17, 1969
approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design,
(aged 83)
but was always concerned with expressing the spirit of the modern
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
era. He is often associated with his fondness for the aphorisms, "less
is more" and "God is in the details". Nationality German American
Citizenship German (1886–
1944), American
Contents (1944–1969)
Occupation Architect
Early career
Spouse(s) Adele Auguste (Ada)
Personal life
Bruhn (1913–1918)
Traditionalism to Modernism (separated)
Emigration to the United States Children 4
Career in the United States Awards Pour le Mérite (1959)
American work Royal Gold Medal
Chicago Federal Complex (1959)
Farnsworth House AIA Gold Medal
The Promontory - Lake Shore Drive (1960)
860–880 Lake Shore Drive
Seagram Building
 Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Presidential Medal of
Two buildings in Baltimore, MD Freedom (1963)
National Gallery, Berlin Buildings Barcelona Pavilion
Furniture Crown Hall
Educator Farnsworth House
Highfield House
Later years and death
860–880 Lake Shore
Archives Drive
Gallery One Charles Center
List of works Seagram Building
New National Gallery
See also
Toronto-Dominion
References Centre
Further reading Tugendhat House
External links Westmount Square
Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial Library
Early career
Mies was born March 27, 1886, in Aachen, Germany.[3] He
worked in his father's stone carving shop[3] and at several local
design firms before he moved to Berlin, where he joined the office
of interior designer Bruno Paul.[4] He began his architectural
career as an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens from 1908 to
425
1912,[5] where he was exposed to the current design theories and
to progressive German culture. He worked alongside Le Corbusier
3
and Walter Gropius, who was later also involved in the
development of the Bauhaus. Mies served as construction manager
of the Embassy of the German Empire in Saint Petersburg under
Behrens.[6]
1
Ludwig Mies renamed himself as part of his transformation from a
tradesman's son to an architect working with Berlin's cultural elite,
adding "van der" and his mother's maiden name "Rohe" (the word
mies means "lousy" in German[7])[8][9] and using the Dutch "van Notable buildings in today's Germany: 1
der", because the German form "von" was a nobiliary particle – Weissenhof Estate, 2 – Neue
legally restricted to those of genuine aristocratic lineage.[10] He Nationalgalerie, 3 – Haus Lange and
began his independent professional career designing upper-class Haus Esters, 4 – Riehl House, 5 –
homes.[11] Lemke House

Personal life
In 1913, Mies married Adele Auguste (Ada) Bruhn (1885–1951), the daughter of a wealthy industrialist.[12]
The couple separated in 1918, after having three daughters: Dorothea (1914–2008), an actress and dancer who
was known as Georgia, Marianne (1915–2003), and Waltraut (1917–1959),[13] who was a research scholar
and curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. During his military service in 1917, Mies fathered a son out of
wedlock.[14]
In 1925 Mies began a relationship with designer Lilly Reich that ended when he moved to the United States;
from 1940 until his death, artist Lora Marx (1900–1989) was his primary companion. Mies carried on a
romantic relationship with sculptor and art collector Mary Callery for whom he designed an artist's studio in
Huntington, Long Island, New York.[15] He also was rumored to have a brief relationship with Edith
Farnsworth, who commissioned his work for the Farnsworth House.[16][17] His daughter Marianne's son, Dirk
Lohan (b. 1938), studied under, and later worked for, Mies.

Traditionalism to Modernism
After World War I, while still designing traditional neoclassical
homes, Mies began a parallel experimental effort. He joined his avant-
garde peers in the long-running search for a new style that would be
suitable for the modern industrial age. The weak points of traditional
styles had been under attack by progressive theorists since the mid-
nineteenth century, primarily for the contradictions of hiding modern
construction technology with a facade of ornamented traditional
styles.

The mounting criticism of the historical styles gained substantial Patio of Villa Wolf, built in 1926 in
cultural credibility after World War I, a disaster widely seen as a Guben for Erich and Elisabeth Wolf
failure of the old world order of imperial leadership of Europe. The
aristocratic classical revival styles were particularly reviled by many
as the architectural symbol of a now-discredited and outmoded social
system. Progressive thinkers called for a completely new architectural
design process guided by rational problem-solving and an exterior
expression of modern materials and structure rather than what they
considered the superficial application of classical facades.

While continuing his traditional neoclassical design practice, Mies

began to develop visionary projects that, though mostly unbuilt, Barcelona Pavilion in Barcelona,
rocketed him to fame as an architect capable of giving form that was constructed in 1929 for the world
in harmony with the spirit of the emerging modern society. Boldly exposition
abandoning ornament altogether, Mies made a dramatic modernist
debut in 1921 with his stunning competition proposal for the faceted
all-glass Friedrichstraße skyscraper, followed by a taller curved
version in 1922 named the Glass Skyscraper.[18]

He constructed his first modernist house with the Villa Wolf in 1926
in Guben (today Gubin, Poland) for Erich and Elisabeth Wolf.[19]
This was shortly followed by Haus Lange and Haus Esters in 1928.

He continued with a series of pioneering projects, culminating in his

two European masterworks: the temporary German Pavilion for the
Barcelona exposition (often called the Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929[20] Villa Tugendhat built in 1930 in Brno
(a 1986 reconstruction is now built on the original site) and the for Fritz Tugendhat
elegant Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czechoslovakia, completed in 1930.

He joined the German avant-garde, working with the progressive

design magazine G, which started in July 1923. He developed prominence as architectural director of the
Werkbund, organizing the influential Weissenhof Estate prototype modernist housing exhibition.[21] He was
also one of the founders of the architectural association Der Ring. He joined the avant-garde Bauhaus design
school as their director of architecture, adopting and developing their functionalist application of simple
geometric forms in the design of useful objects. He served as its last director.

Like many other avant-garde architects of the day, Mies based his architectural mission and principles on his
understanding and interpretation of ideas developed by theorists and critics who pondered the declining
relevance of the traditional design styles. He selectively adopted theoretical ideas such as the aesthetic credos
of Russian Constructivism with their ideology of "efficient" sculptural assembly of modern industrial materials.
Mies found appeal in the use of simple rectilinear and planar forms, clean lines, pure use of color, and the
extension of space around and beyond interior walls expounded by the Dutch De Stijl group. In particular, the
layering of functional sub-spaces within an overall space and the distinct articulation of parts as expressed by
Gerrit Rietveld appealed to Mies.

The design theories of Adolf Loos found resonance with Mies, particularly the ideas of replacing elaborate
applied artistic ornament with the straightforward display of innate visual qualities of materials and forms.
Loos had proposed that art and crafts should be entirely independent of architecture, that the architect should
no longer control those cultural elements as the Beaux Arts principles had dictated. Mies also admired his ideas
about the nobility that could be found in the anonymity of modern life.

The bold work of leading American architects was admired by European architects. Like other architects who
viewed the drawings in Frank Lloyd Wright's Wasmuth Portfolio, Mies was enthralled with the free-flowing
spaces of inter-connected rooms that encompass their outdoor surroundings, as demonstrated by the open floor
plans of the Wright's American Prairie Style. American engineering structures were also held up as exemplary
of the beauty possible in functional construction, and American skyscrapers were greatly admired.

Emigration to the United States

Commission opportunities dwindled with the Great Depression after
1929. Starting in 1930, Mies served as the last director of the faltering
Bauhaus, at the request of his colleague and competitor Walter
Gropius. In 1932, Nazi political pressure forced the state-supported
school to leave its campus in Dessau, and Mies moved it to an
abandoned telephone factory in Berlin. By 1933, however, the
continued operation of the school was untenable (it was raided by the
Gestapo in April), and in July of that year, Mies and the faculty voted Crown Hall at Illinois Institute of
to close the Bauhaus. He built very little in these years (one built Technology
commission was Philip Johnson's New York apartment); the Nazis
rejected his style as not "German" in character.

Frustrated and unhappy, he left his homeland reluctantly in 1937 as he saw his opportunity for any future
building commissions vanish, accepting a residential commission in Wyoming and then an offer to head the
department of architecture of the newly established Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago.[22] There
he introduced a new kind of education and attitude later known as Second Chicago School, which became
very influential in the following decades in North America and Europe.

Career in the United States

Mies settled in Chicago, Illinois, where he was appointed head of the architecture school at Chicago's Armour
Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute of Technology). One of the benefits of taking this
position was that he would be commissioned to design the new buildings and master plan for the campus.[23]
All his buildings still stand there, including Alumni Hall, the chapel, and his
masterpiece the S.R. Crown Hall, built as the home of IIT's School of
Architecture. Crown Hall is widely regarded as Mies' finest work, the
definition of Miesian architecture.

In 1944, he became an American citizen, completing his severance from his

native Germany.[24] His thirty years as an American architect reflect a more
structural, pure approach toward achieving his goal of a new architecture for
the twentieth century. He focused his efforts on enclosing open and adaptable
"universal" spaces with clearly arranged structural frameworks, featuring
prefabricated steel shapes filled in with large sheets of glass.

His early projects at the IIT campus, and for developer Herbert Greenwald,
presented to Americans a style that seemed a natural progression of the almost
forgotten nineteenth century Chicago School style. His architecture, with
origins in the German Bauhaus and western European International Style,
became an accepted mode of building for American cultural and educational
institutions, developers, public agencies, and large corporations. IBM Plaza, Chicago, Illinois

American work
Mies worked from his studio in downtown Chicago for his entire
31-year period in America. His significant projects in the U.S.
include in Chicago and the area: the residential towers of 860–880
Lake Shore Dr, the Chicago Federal Center complex, the
Farnsworth House, Crown Hall and other structures at IIT; and the 12
3
Seagram Building in New York. These iconic works became the
prototypes for his other projects. He also built homes for wealthy
clients.
Notable buildings in the US: 1 –
Farnsworth House, 2 – 860–880 Lake
Chicago Federal Complex
Shore Drive Apartments, 3 – Seagram
Building
Chicago Federal Center Plaza, also known as Chicago Federal
Plaza, unified three buildings of varying scales: the mid-rise
Everett McKinley Dirksen Building, the high-rise John C.
Kluczynski Building, and the single-story Post Office building. The complex's plot area extends over two
blocks; a one-block site, bounded by Jackson, Clark, Adams, and Dearborn streets, contains the Kluczynski
Federal Building and U.S. Post Office Loop Station, while a parcel on an adjacent block to the east contains
the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. The structural framing of the buildings is formed of high-tensile bolted steel and
concrete. The exterior curtain walls are defined by projecting steel I-beam mullions covered with flat black
graphite paint, characteristic of Mies's designs. The balance of the curtain walls are of bronze-tinted glass
panes, framed in shiny aluminum, and separated by steel spandrels, also covered with flat black graphite
paint.[25][26] The entire complex is organized on a 28-foot grid pattern subdivided into six 4-foot, 8-inch
modules. This pattern extends from the granite-paved plaza into the ground-floor lobbies of the two tower
buildings with the grid lines continuing vertically up the buildings and integrating each component of the
complex. Associated architects that have played a role in the complex's long history from 1959 to 1974 include
Schmidt, Garden & Erickson; C.F. Murphy Associates; and A. Epstein & Sons.[27]

Farnsworth House
Between 1946 and 1951, Mies van der Rohe designed and built the
Farnsworth House, a weekend retreat outside Chicago for an
independent professional woman, Dr. Edith Farnsworth. Here, Mies
explored the relationship between people, shelter, and nature. The
glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox
River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies.

The highly crafted pristine white structural frame and all-glass walls
define a simple rectilinear interior space, allowing nature and light to
envelop the interior space. A wood-paneled fireplace (also housing
mechanical equipment, kitchen, and toilets) 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 has been described as sublime, a temple hovering
between heaven and earth, a poem, a work of art.

The Farnsworth House and its 60-acre (240,000 m2 ) wooded site was
purchased at auction for US$7.5 million by preservation groups in Chicago Federal Center, built 1964–
2004 and is now owned and operated by the National Trust for 1974
Historic Preservation as a public museum. The building influenced the
creation of hundreds of modernist glass houses, most notably the
Glass House by Philip Johnson, located near New York City and also
now owned by the National Trust.

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, a clearly
understandable arrangement of architectural parts. His ideas are stated
with clarity and simplicity, using materials that are configured to
express their own individual character.
Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth
House
The Promontory - Lake Shore Drive

The Promontory Apartments is a 22-story skyscraper in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, that overlooks
Promontory Point in Burnham Park and its Lake Michigan beaches. It is the first residential skyscraper Mies
designed and the first of his buildings to feature concepts such as an exposed skeleton. An active community
cooperative (https://www.promontoryapartments.org/), the building which is on the U.S. National Register of
Historic Places, has 122 units. Its building was initiated by developer Herbert Greenwald for wealthier
occupants. Mies employed a Double T design with the horizontal cross-bars joined; the stems of the T's form
wings to the rear. Each T is its own building with separate addresses, elevators, and interior stairways. This
tripartite design would feature prominently in future Mies designs. Starting with the third story, each floor of
each T has three apartments that share an elevator lobby. A solarium and party room on the roof provides
excellent views of the park and beaches to the east, and the University of Chicago to the west.

860–880 Lake Shore Drive

Mies designed a series of four middle-income high-rise apartment buildings for developer Herbert 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. Mies found their unit sizes too
small for him, choosing instead to continue living in a spacious
traditional luxury apartment a few blocks away. The towers were
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 not unlike those of the Greek temples. This
configuration created a 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. Some
historians argue that this new approach is an expression of the
American spirit and the boundless open space of the frontier, which
German culture so admired.

Once Mies had established his basic design concept for the general
form and details of his tower buildings, he applied those solutions 860–880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago,
(with evolving refinements) to his later high-rise building projects. Illinois
The architecture of his towers appears similar, but each project
represents new ideas about the formation of highly sophisticated
urban space at ground level. He delighted in the composition of multiple towers arranged in a seemingly casual
non-hierarchical relation to each other.

Just as with his interiors, he created free flowing spaces and flat surfaces that represented the idea of an oasis
of uncluttered clarity and calm within the chaos of the city. He included nature by leaving openings in the
pavement, through which plants seem to grow unfettered by urbanization, just as in the pre-settlement
environment.

Seagram Building

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.
Detractors criticized it as having committed Adolf Loos's "crime of
ornamentation". Philip Johnson had a role in interior materials
selections, and he designed the sumptuous Four Seasons Restaurant.
The Seagram Building is said to be an early example of the innovative
"fast-track" construction process, where design documentation and
construction are done concurrently.

During 1951–1952, Mies' designed the steel, glass, and brick

McCormick House, located in Elmhurst, Illinois (15 miles west of the
Chicago Loop), for real-estate developer Robert Hall McCormick, Jr.
A one-story adaptation of the exterior curtain wall of his famous 860–
880 Lake Shore Drive towers, it served as a prototype for an unbuilt
series of speculative houses to be constructed in Melrose Park, Seagram Building
Illinois. The house has been moved and reconfigured as a part of the public Elmhurst Art Museum. He also
built a residence for John M. van Beuren on a family estate near Morristown, New Jersey.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Mies designed two buildings for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(MFAH) as additions to the Caroline Wiess Law Building. In 1953,
the MFAH commissioned Mies van der Rohe to create a master plan
for the institution. He designed two additions to the building—
Cullinan Hall, completed in 1958, and the Brown Pavilion, completed
in 1974. A renowned example of the International Style, these
portions of the Caroline Wiess Law Building comprise one of only
two Mies-designed museums in the world.[28]

Caroline Wiess Law Building of the

Two buildings in Baltimore, MD Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
Texas
The One Charles Center, built in 1962, is a 23-story aluminum and
glass building that heralded the beginning of Baltimore's downtown
modern buildings.[29] The Highfield House, just to the northeast of the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus,
was built in 1964 as a rental apartment building.[30][31] The 15-story concrete tower became a residential
condominium building in 1979. Both buildings are now on the National Register of Historic Places.

National Gallery, Berlin

Mies's last work was the Neue Nationalgalerie art museum, the New
National Gallery for the Berlin National Gallery. Considered one of
the most perfect statements of his architectural approach, the upper
pavilion is a precise composition of monumental steel columns and a
cantilevered (overhanging) roof plane with a glass enclosure. The
simple square glass pavilion is a powerful expression of his ideas
about flexible interior space, defined by transparent walls and
supported by an external structural frame. Art installations by Ulrich
Rückriem (1998) or Jenny Holzer, as much as exhibitions on the
Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin
work of Renzo Piano or Rem Koolhaas have demonstrated the
exceptional possibilities of this space.

The glass pavilion is a relatively small portion of the overall building, serving as a symbolic architectural entry
point and monumental gallery for temporary exhibits. A large podium building below the pavilion
accommodates most of the museum's total built area with conventional white-walled art gallery spaces and
support functions. A large window running along all the West facade opens these spaces up to the large
sculpture garden which is part of the podium building.

Furniture
Mies, often in collaboration with Lilly Reich, designed modern furniture pieces using new industrial
technologies that have become popular classics, such as 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 supporting structure and the supported surfaces,
often employing cantilevers to enhance the feeling of lightness created
by delicate structural frames.

Educator
Mies served as the last director of Berlin's Bauhaus, and then headed
the department of architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology in
Chicago, where he developed the Second Chicago School. He played Furniture in the Tugendhat House,
a significant role as an educator, believing his architectural language including Tugendhat chairs
could be learned, then 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 replacing the traditional Ecole des Beaux-Art curriculum by a three-
step-education beginning with crafts of drawing and construction leading to planning skills and finishing with
theory of architecture (compare Vitruvius: firmitas, utilitas, venustas). He worked personally and intensively on
prototype solutions, and then allowed his students, both in school and his office, to develop derivative
solutions for specific projects under his guidance.

Some of Mies' curriculum is still put in practice in the first and second year programs at IIT, including the
precise drafting of brick construction details so unpopular with aspiring student architects. When none was
able to match the quality of his own work, he agonized about where his educational method had gone wrong.
Nevertheless, his achievements in creating a teachable architecture language that can be used to express the
modern technological era survives until today.

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. Mies served on the initial Advisory
Board of the Graham Foundation in Chicago. His own practice was based on intensive personal involvement
in design efforts to create prototype solutions for building types (860 Lake Shore Drive, the Farnsworth
House, Seagram Building, S. R. Crown Hall, The New National Gallery), then allowing his studio designers
to develop derivative buildings under his supervision.

Mies's grandson Dirk Lohan and two partners led the firm after he died in 1969. Lohan, who had collaborated
with Mies on the New National Gallery, continued with existing projects but soon led the firm on his own
independent path. Other disciples continued Mies's architectural language for years, notably Gene Summers,
David Haid, Myron Goldsmith, Y.C. Wong, Jacques Brownson, and other architects at the firms of C.F.
Murphy and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

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. Proponents
of the Post Modern style attacked the Modernism with clever statements such as "less is a bore" and with
captivating images such as Crown Hall sinking in Lake Michigan. Mies 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 rejected by the general public.
The failure of his followers to meet his high standard may have contributed to demise of Modernism and the
rise of new competing design theories following his death.

Later years and death

Over the last twenty years of his life, Mies developed and built his vision of a monumental "skin and bones"
architecture that reflected his goal to provide the individual a place to fulfill himself in the modern era. Mies
sought to create free and open spaces, enclosed within a structural order with minimal presence. In 1963, he
was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[32]

Mies van der Rohe died on August 17, 1969, from esophageal cancer
caused by his smoking habit.[33] After cremation,[34] his ashes were
buried near Chicago's other famous architects in Chicago's Graceland
Cemetery. His grave is marked by a simple black slab of granite and a
large honey locust tree.[1]

Archives
Mies van der Rohe's grave marker in
The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Archive, an administratively Graceland Cemetery
independent section of the Museum of Modern Art's department of
architecture and design, was established in 1968 by the museum's
trustees. It was founded in response to the architect's desire to
bequeath his entire work to the museum. The archive consists of
about nineteen thousand drawings and prints, one thousand of which
are by the designer and architect Lilly Reich (1885–1947), Mies van
der Rohe's close collaborator from 1927 to 1937; of written
documents (primarily, the business correspondence) covering nearly
the entire career of the architect; of photographs of buildings, models,
and furniture; and of audiotapes, books, and periodicals. German commemorative stamp
marking 100 years since Mies's birth
Archival materials are also held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries
at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Collection, 1929–1969 (bulk 1948–1960) includes correspondence, articles, and materials related to his
association with the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Metropolitan Structures
Collection, 1961–1969, includes scrapbooks and photographs documenting Chicago projects.

Other archives are held at the University of Illinois at Chicago (personal book collection), the Canadian Centre
for Architecture (drawings and photos) in Montreal, the Newberry Library in Chicago (personal
correspondence), and at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (professional correspondence).

Gallery
 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Interior of
Library, Washington Neue
Nationalgal
erie
museum in
Berlin,
Germany

Lafayette Park, Detroit is on the U.S. National Lafayette Toronto-Dominion

Register of Historic Places Towers Centre logo
Apartments includes the font
East, Detroit text created by Mies
 TD Centre pavilion, S.R. Crown Hall on the Highfield House, Baltimore
Toronto, used as a branch campus of the Illinois
for TD Canada Trust bank Institute of Technology is a
National Historic Landmark

University of 201 Corot, Montréal

Chicago
School of
Social Service
Administration

List of works
Early career in Berlin (1907–1938)

1908 Riehl House – Residential home, Potsdam, Germany

1911 Perls House – Residential home, Zehlendorf
1913 Werner House – Residential home, Zehlendorf
1917 Urbig House – Residential home, Potsdam
1922 Kempner House – Residential home, Charlottenburg
1922 Eichstaedt House – Residential home, Wannsee
1922 Feldmann House – Residential home, Wilmersdorf A memorial to the Spartacist leaders
1923 Ryder House – Residential home, Wiesbaden Karl Liebknecht and Rosa
Luxemburg, commissioned by
1925 Villa Wolf – Residential home, Guben
Eduard Fuchs, president of the
1926 Mosler House – Residential home, Babelsberg German Communist Party in
1926 Revolutionsdenkmal – Monument dedicated to Karl Germany designed by Ludwig Mies
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Zentralfriedhof van der Rohe, built by Wilhelm
Friedrichsfelde, Berlin Pieck, and inaugurated on June 13,
1927 Afrikanische Straße Apartments – Multi-Family 1926, later destroyed by the Nazis
Residential, Berlin, Germany
 1927 Weissenhof Estate – Housing Exhibition coordinated by Mies and with a contribution by
him, Stuttgart
1928 Haus Lange and Haus Esters – Residential home and an art museum, Krefeld
1929 Barcelona Pavilion – World's Fair Pavilion, Barcelona, Spain
1930 Villa Tugendhat – Residential home, Brno, Czechia, designated a World Heritage Site by
UNESCO in 2001
1930 Verseidag Factory – Dyeing and HE Silk Mill building Krefeld, Germany[35]
1932 Lemke House – Residential home, Weissensee

Buildings after emigration to the United States (1939–1960)

1939–1958 – Illinois Institute of Technology Campus Master Plan, academic campus &
buildings, Chicago, Illinois
1949 The Promontory Apartments – Residential apartment complex, Chicago, Illinois
1951 Sheridan-Oakdale Apartments (2933 N Sheridan Rd ) – Residential apartment complex,
Chicago, Illinois
1951 Lake Shore Drive Apartments – Residential apartment towers, Chicago
1951 Algonquin Apartments – Residential apartments, Chicago, Illinois[36][37]
1951 Farnsworth House – Vacation home, Plano, Illinois
1952 Arts Club of Chicago Interior Renovation – Art gallery, demolished in 1997, Chicago,
Illinois
1952 Robert H. McCormick House – Residential home, relocated to the Elmhurst Art Museum,
Elmhurst, Illinois
1954 Cullinan Hall – Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1956 Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture – Academic building,
Chicago, Illinois[38]
1956 900-910 North Lake Shore (Esplanade Apartments) – Residential apartment complex,
Chicago, Illinois
1957 Commonwealth Promenade Apartments (330–330 W Diversey Parkway) – Residential
apartment complex, Chicago (1957)[39]
1958 Seagram Building – Office tower, New York City, New York
1958 Caroline Wiess Law Building, Museum of Fine Art, Houston
1959 Home Federal Savings and Loan Association Building – Office building, Des Moines,
Iowa
1959 Lafayette Park – Residential development, Detroit, Michigan.[40]
1960 Pavilion and Colonnade Apartments– Residential complex, Newark, New Jersey

Late career Worldwide (1961–69)

1961 Bacardi Office Building – Office Building, Mexico City

1962 Tourelle-Sur-Rive – Residential apartment complex of three towers, Nuns' Island,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
1962 Home Federal Savings and Loan Association of Des Moines Building – Office Building,
Des Moines, Iowa
1962 One Charles Center – Office Tower, Baltimore, Maryland
1963 2400 North Lakeview Apartments – Residential Apartment Complex, Chicago, Illinois
1963 Morris Greenwald House – Vacation Home, Weston, Connecticut
1964 Chicago Federal Center – Civic Complex, Chicago, Illinois
 1960–1964 Dirksen Federal Building – Office Tower, Chicago
Kluczynski Federal Building – Office Tower, Chicago
United States Post Office Loop Station – General Post Office, Chicago
1964 Highfield House, 4000 North Charles – Originally Rental Apartments, and now
Condominium Apartments, Baltimore, Maryland
1965 University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration – Academic Building
Chicago, Illinois
1965 Richard King Mellon Hall – Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA
1965 Meredith Hall – School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Drake University, Des
Moines, IA
1967 Westmount Square – Office & Residential Tower Complex, Westmount, Island of
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
1968 Neue Nationalgalerie – Modern Art Museum, Berlin, Germany
1965–1968 Brown Pavilion, Museum of Fine Art, Houston
1967–1969 Toronto-Dominion Centre – Office Tower Complex, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1969 Filling station – Nuns' Island, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (closed)
1970 One Illinois Center – Office Tower, Chicago, Illinois (completed post-mortem)
1972 Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library – District of Columbia Public Library, Washington,
D.C. (completed post-mortem)
1973 American Life Building – Louisville, Kentucky (completed after Mies's death by Bruno
Conterato)
1973 IBM Plaza – Office Tower, Chicago (completed post-mortem)

Buildings on the Illinois Institute of Technology Campus (1939–1958)

1943 Minerals & Metals Research Building – Research[38]

1945 Engineering Research Building – Research[38]
1946 Alumni Memorial Hall – Classroom[38]
1946 Wishnick Hall – Classroom[38]
1946 Perlstein Hall – Classroom[38]
1950 I.I.T. Boiler Plant – Academic[38]
1950 Institute of Gas Technology Building – Research[38]
1950 American Association of Railroads Administration Building (now the College of Music
Building) – Administration[38]
1952 Mechanical Engineering Research Building I – Research[38]
1952 Carr Memorial Chapel – Religious[38]
1953 American Association of Railroads Mechanical Engineering Building – Research[38]
1953 Carman Hall at IIT – Dormitory[38]
1955 Cunningham Hall – Dormitory[38]
1955 Bailey Hall – Dormitory[38]
1955 I.I.T. Commons Building[38]
1956 Crown Hall – Academic, College of Architecture[38]
1957 Physics & Electrical Engineering Research Building – Research[38]
1957 Siegel Hall – Classroom[38]
1953 American Association of Railroads Laboratory Building – Research[38]
 1958 Metals Technology Building Extension – Research[38]

See also
Online Architecture (https://www.arclif.com) - lets the construction purpose of building online
International style (architecture)

References
1. "Mies van der Rohe Dies at 83; Leader of Modern Architecture" (https://www.nytimes.com/learni
ng/general/onthisday/bday/0327.html). The New York Times. August 17, 1969. Retrieved
July 21, 2007. "Mies van der Rohe, one of the great figures of 20th-century architecture, died in
Wesley Memorial Hospital here late last night. He was 83 years old."
2. Dyckhoff, Tom (November 30, 2002). "Mies and the Nazis" (https://www.theguardian.com/artan
ddesign/2002/nov/30/architecture.artsfeatures). the Guardian. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
3. Frank N. Magill (March 5, 2014). The 20th Century Go-N: Dictionary of World Biography (https://
books.google.com/books?id=I3sBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA2520). Routledge. pp. 2520–. ISBN 978-
1-317-74060-5.
4. Jean-Louis Cohen (1996). Mies Van Der Rohe (https://books.google.com/books?id=c6ALj_lw9I
UC&pg=PA13). Taylor & Francis. pp. 13–. ISBN 978-0-419-20330-8.
5. Jean-Louis Cohen (1996). Mies Van Der Rohe (https://books.google.com/books?id=c6ALj_lw9I
UC&pg=PA15). Taylor & Francis. pp. 15–. ISBN 978-0-419-20330-8.
6. "German Embassy Building" (http://www.encspb.ru/en/article.php?kod=2804004653).
Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg. Retrieved August 11, 2008.
7. "mies – Wiktionary" (https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/mies#%C3%9Cbersetzungen). Wiktionary.
Retrieved November 5, 2018.
8. Haubrich, Rainer (July 18, 2001). "Die Moderne ist Geschichte" (https://www.welt.de/print-welt/
article463762/Die-Moderne-ist-Geschichte.html). Die Welt (in German). Hamburg. Retrieved
July 24, 2018.
9. "Ludwieg Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969)" (https://web.archive.org/web/20010810221712/htt
p://www.designboom.com/portrait/mies/bg.html). designboom.com. Archived from the original (h
ttp://www.designboom.com/portrait/mies/bg.html) on August 10, 2001. Retrieved March 22,
2011.
10. "Do Italian last names beginning with 'de,' 'del,' or 'della' indicate nobility?" (April 6, 1990)The
Straight Dope[1] (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/622/do-italian-last-names-beginni
ng-with-de-del-or-della-indicate-nobility)
11. "Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe" (http://architectuul.com/architect/ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe).
Architectuul.com. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
12. Schulze. Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, New and Revised Edition. University of
Chicago Press.
13. "In Memoriam". Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly. 53/54: 32. February 1960. JSTOR 4120547
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/4120547).
14. "Mies' Children" (http://www.tugendhat.eu/en/mies-children.html). tugendhat.eu. Retrieved
October 22, 2012.
15. Welch, Frank D. (2000). Philip Johnson & Texas (http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exwel
phi.html) (1st ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 318. ISBN 0-292-79134-8.
16. Davies, Colin (2006). Key Houses of the Twentieth Century: Plans, Sections and Elevations (ht
tps://books.google.com/books?id=GdIbk8X4HTEC&pg=PT113). Laurence King Publishing.
p. 113. ISBN 978-1-85669-463-6.
17. Coleman, Debra; Danze, Elizabeth; Henderson, Carol (1996). Architecture and feminism: Yale
publications on architecture (https://books.google.com/books?id=4V_qAAAAMAAJ). Princeton
Architectural Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-1-56898-043-0.
18. Compare Arthur Lubow's "The Contextualizer," (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazin
e/06nouvel.html?pagewanted=4&sq=grande%20arche&st=nyt&scp=10) New York Times. April
6, 2008, p. 4; excerpt, "...a skyscraper that Nouvel (adapting a term from the artist Brâncuși)
called the "tour sans fins," or endless tower. Conceived as a kind of minaret alongside the
squat, monumental Grande Arche de La Défense, the endless tower has taken on some of the
mystique of Mies van der Rohe's unbuilt Friedrichstrasse glass skyscraper of 1921. To obscure
its lower end, the tower was designed to sit within a crater. Its facade, appearing to vanish in
the sky, changed as it rose, from charcoal-colored granite to paler stone, then to aluminum and
finally to glass that became increasingly reflective, all to enhance the illusion of
dematerialization."
19. "Die "Mies-Memory-Box" " (https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/die-mies-memory-box.691.de.htm
l?dram:article_id=49860). Deutschlandfunk.
20. Farnsworth House. "History" (http://www.farnsworthhouse.org/history.htm) Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20070224063735/http://www.farnsworthhouse.org/history.htm) February 24,
2007, at the Wayback Machine, Farnsworth House, Retrieved on January 30, 2013.
21. Ross, Stephen; Lindgreen, Allana C. (2015). The Modernist World. New York: Routledge.
p. 317. ISBN 978-0-415-47378-1.
22. Grossman, Ron (September 20, 2019). "Flashback: Mies van der Rohe profoundly reshaped
Chicago's skyline with his structurally austere vision" (https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/
commentary/ct-opinion-flashback-mies-van-der-rohe-chicago-iit-20190920-2yixpj5f2zgphmisxn
du7v3emq-story.html). Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 22, 2019.
23. Serrano Avilés, Ramón; Osuna Redondo, Roberto; Valcarce Labrador, María Teresa (2016).
Mies van der Rohe's Illinois Institute of Technology: Analysis and History of a Compositive
Development.
24. Trevor Homer (December 13, 2013). Born in the USA: The American Book of Origins (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=vS0hAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT167). Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 167–.
ISBN 978-1-62636-976-4.
25. "John C. Kluczynski Federal Building, Chicago, IL" (https://www.gsa.gov/portal/ext/html/site/hb/
category/25431/actionParameter/exploreByBuilding/buildingId/1062). Retrieved July 14, 2015.
26. "Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, Chicago, IL" (https://web.archive.org/web/201509240416
43/http://www.gsa.gov/portal/ext/html/site/hb/method/get/category/25431/actionParameter/explo
reByBuilding/buildingId/1090). Archived from the original (https://www.gsa.gov/portal/ext/html/si
te/hb/method/get/category/25431/actionParameter/exploreByBuilding/buildingId/1090) on
September 24, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2015.
27. "Chicago Federal Center Plaza" (http://tclf.org/landscapes/federal-plaza). Retrieved July 14,
2015.
28. "The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Law Building" (https://web.archive.org/web/200610030508
46/http://www.mfah.org/destination.asp?par1=1&par2=1&par3=1&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par
7=&lgc=3&eid=&currentPage=). Mfah.org. Archived from the original (http://mfah.org/destinatio
n.asp?par1=1&par2=1&par3=1&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=3&eid=&currentPage=)
on October 3, 2006. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
29. "National Register Properties in Maryland" (https://mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRDetail.aspx?NRID=
1243). mht.maryland.gov. Retrieved December 16, 2018.
30. "National Register Properties in Maryland" (https://mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRDetail.aspx?NRID=
1524). mht.maryland.gov. Retrieved December 16, 2018.
31. Hallmen, Sierra; Bruder, Anne. "Highfield House – Midcentury Modernist Landmark by Mies
van der Rohe" (https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/517). Explore Baltimore
Heritage. Retrieved December 16, 2018.
32. Wetterau, Bruce (1996). The Presidential Medal of Freedom : winners and their achievements
(https://archive.org/details/presidentialmeda00wett_0). Washington D.C.: Congressional
Quarterly Inc. p. 72 (https://archive.org/details/presidentialmeda00wett_0/page/72). ISBN 1-
56802-128-3. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
33. Schulze. Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, New and Revised Edition. University of
Chicago Press. p. 189.
34. Schulze, Franz; Windhorst, Edward (2012). "Recessional: 1962–69". Mies van der Rohe: A
Critical Biography (New and revised ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 397.
ISBN 978-0-226-75600-4.
35. Mies In Krefeld (http://www.projektmik.com/artist_info_en.php?SID=XqH4vMyi431Z&aid=8&an
ame=F%E4rberei-%20und%20HE-Geb%E4ude,%20Verseidag1930). Projekt Mik. Retrieved
on December 23, 2013.
36. Chase, Al (January 7, 1950). "2 Apartment Projects to Be Started Soon". Chicago Daily
Tribune.
37. "Algonquin Apartments" (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/cx/?id=100638). Emporis.com.
Retrieved July 20, 2008.
38. Blaser, Werner. Mies Van der Rohe IIT Campus. Basel, Boston Berlin: Birkauser Publishers for
Architecture. 2002. Print
39. "Commonwealth Promenade Apartments, 1953–1956" (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?
set=a.129325695378.135409.56200560378&type=3). Facebook. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
40. Vitullo-Martin, Julio.The Biggest Mies Collection: His Lafayette Park residential development
thrives in Detroit (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119827404882045751).The Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved on April 21, 2007.

Further reading
Blake, Peter (1976). The Master Builders (https://archive.org/details/masterbuildersle0000blak).
New York: W W Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 0-393-00796-0.
Carter, Peter (1974). Mies van der Rohe at Work. New York: Praeger. OCLC 627943 (https://ww
w.worldcat.org/oclc/627943).
Daza, Ricardo (2000). Looking for Mies. Barcelona: Actar. ISBN 978-84-96954-37-3.
Lamster, Mark (2018). "The man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern
Century" (hardcover,528 pages) Little, Brown & Co. English; ISBN 0-316-12643-8; ISBN 978-0-
316-12643-4
Neumeyer, Fritz (1991). The Artless Word: Mies Van der Rohe on the Building Art. Cambridge:
MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-2621-4047-8.
Puente, Moisés (2008). Conversations with Mies Van Der Rohe. New York: Princeton
Architectural Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-56898-753-8.
Rovira, Josep M; Casais, Lluis (2002). Mies van der Rohe Pavilion: Reflections,71 pages.
Publisher:Triangle Postal. ISBN 978-84-8478-039-7
Schulze, Franz (1985). Mies Van Der Rohe; A Critical Biography. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, Inc. ISBN 0-226-74059-5.
Schulze, Franz; Windhorst, Edward (2012). Mies Van Der Rohe, a Critical Biography (New and
Revised ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-75600-4.
Sharp, Dennis (1991). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture. New York:
Whitney Library of Design. p. 109. ISBN 0-8230-2539-X.
Spaeth, David (1985). Mies Van Der Rohe. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
ISBN 0-8478-0563-8.
Zimmerman, Claire (2015). Mies Van Der Rohe. Köln Germany: Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8365-
6042-9.
 Lambert, Phyllis (2001). Mies van der Rohe: the difficult art of the simple. Montreal: Canadian
Centre for Architecture. ISBN 0-920785-71-9.
Junichi, Sano (2017). MIES, ORDER, GOLDEN PROPORTION: TRACING
ARCHITECTURAL IDEAS OF MIES VAN DER ROHE. Tokyo: Marzen planet. ISBN 978-4-
86345-355-5.

External links
Mies van der Rohe Society (http://www.miessociety.org/)
Mies van der Rohe Foundation (http://miesbcn.com/)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (https://www.moma.org/artists/7166) at the Museum of Modern Art
Mies in Berlin-Mies in America (http://www.moma.org/mies/)
Great Buildings Architects (https://web.archive.org/web/20030603155429/http://www.greatbuild
ings.com/architects/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe.html)
Mies van der Rohe Spotlight (https://www.archdaily.com/350573/happy-127th-birthday-mies-va
n-der-rohe) – ArchDaily (https://www.archdaily.com)
Elmhurst Art Museum, featuring McCormick House (http://www.elmhurstartmuseum.org)
Richard King Mellon Hall, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA (http://www.bluffton.edu/~sulliva
nm/mies/miespitt.html)
Mies, IIT, and the Second Chicago School (https://web.archive.org/web/20081226153600/http://
www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/research/specialcollections/subject/mies.html)
Mies in America exhibition (https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/events/2645/mies-in-america)
Travel guide to Mies Buildings (http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/lemke/index.htm)
Construction underway to transform famed Nuns’ Island gas station (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20120323233352/http://montreal.openfile.ca/blog/2011/construction-underway-transform-fam
ed-nuns%E2%80%99-island-gas-station)
Mies' Lafayette Park in Detroit (https://web.archive.org/web/20140520082704/http://www.ktoth.c
a/Mies-Lafayette-Park)
Mies in IR (https://web.archive.org/web/20141107223211/http://www.ktoth.ca/Mies-in-IR)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe architectural and furniture drawings, 1946–1961, held by the Avery
Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University (http://clio.cul.columbia.edu:7018/vweb
v/holdingsInfo?bibId=5968357)
Finding aid for the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his students collection (https://www.cca.qc.c
a/en/search/details/collection/object/474300), Canadian Centre for Architecture

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