2024-04-16
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German modernist architect, who also held the position of director of the Bauhaus for a time. His most famous achievements certainly include the Barcelona Pavilion, part of the 1929 German World Exhibition in Barcelona. A reconstruction of the pavilion can still be visited today in the Catalan capital.
Mies van der Rohe's career began in Berlin after the First World War, where he designed a skyscraper on Friedrichstrasse in 1921. He used steel and glass in the design, which would later prove to define modernist architecture. Between 1930 and 1932 he becomes director of the Bauhaus, then his private art and craft school. In 1938, the architect decides to move to the United States, where he takes up the post of director of the Armour Institute in Chicago (later renamed the Illinois Institute of Technology). There, he shapes an entire generation of American architects with his innovative curriculum. Moreover, he designs there, the most famous buildings of the university. In 1944, Mies was awarded American citizenship and in 1963 the Medal of Freedom (the highest American civilian honour) by President Kennedy.
The pavilion mentioned in the introduction, built in Barcelona in 1929, was characterized by a simple form using the free plan principle and spatial continuum. It stood on a small travertine pedestal with a pond at the base of the pedestal, in which a mirror image of the building could be seen. The simple form of the building was contrasted with decorative stones: marble, onyx and travertine. In addition, there was no clear division between the indoor and outdoor spaces of the building; the architect wanted to achieve an effect of the interpenetration of the volumes. In this way, the house became part of nature.
Besides the Barcelona Pavilion, Mies' most famous projects certainly include the 1930 Tugendhat House in Brno or the 1958 Seagram Building in New York.
Interestingly, the Mies van der Rohe Prize has been awarded since 2001 to honour outstanding architectural works created throughout Europe. The architect's most famous aphorisms include: "less is more", and "God is hidden in the details", these quotes, well illustrate his most important views on architecture.