VAN DER ROHE, LUDWIG MIES 1886-1969

FOREMOST ARCHITECT OF CORPORATE AMERICA

Bauhaus-Trained

Considered one of the founders of modern architecture, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's directed his concepts toward industrialization and harmonious proportions. Mies practiced architecture in Berlin, Germany, from 1911 to 1937, serving as the last director of the famous Bauhaus school from 1930 to 1933. He became internationally famous after World War I with his design of two steel skyscrapers entirely sheathed in glass. These were fore-runners of his creations in the United States, where he settled in 1938 after fleeing from Nazi Germany.

Glass and Steel

In the 1950s Mies's glass-and-steel skyscrapers (" glass-and-steel boxes," his detractors called them) were adopted by much of corporate America. Chief executive officers liked the well-ordered look of Mies's sleek, geometric buildings; his creations became a symbol of corporate power and spawned imitations all over America. Mies's famous buildings included the Sea-gram Corporation headquarters in New York City, which set a precedent for that city's commercial architecture, and the Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago, a pair of rectangular, twenty-five-story towers called the world's first all-glass-and-steel apartment building. He also designed houses for individuals. One of those commissions resulted in the famous Farnsworth House in Fox River, Illinois, whose owner ended up suing Mies because the house was too impractical and too costly to live in. (The house was a pair of horizontal slabs floating from eight welded beams. The owner lost the suit.) Mies also designed the one-hundred-acre campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, the first modern American campus ever built as a single, conforming architectural unit.

Beyond U.S. Borders

Mies also designed many famous buildings outside the United States—in Mexico, Germany (the National Gallery in Berlin, 1963-1968), and Canada. His influence was felt worldwide, and the early work of such well-known architects as Minoru Yamasaki, Philip Johnson, Ieoh M. Pei, and C. Fing Murphy was clearly influenced by Mies's concepts.

Form Follows Function

Mies followed his famous maxim, "form follows function," to the letter, and so did many of his imitators. Numerous architects copied his designs while cutting costs, often using cheaper, prefabricated materials. The buildings looked rational and neat, perfect for the optimistic, booming economy of the 1950s. Throughout the decade Mies's glass-and-steel creations and others like them popped up all over America.