Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Mies was born in Aachen, Germany, on March 27, 1886, and established an architectural office in Berlin in 1912.^1,2,3 Architectuul describes criticism of historical architectural styles as gaining cultural credibility after World War I, amid a wider reassessment of the old European order.² Architectuul identifies De Stijl’s rectilinear forms, clean lines, use of color, and spatial ideas as influences on Mies’s work.²

The same account identifies Adolf Loos’s rejection of applied ornament and interest in the anonymity of modern life as influences on Mies.² Mies designed the Barcelona Pavilion in 1929; Knoll describes its glass, stone, and metal planes as an experiment in free-flowing space.³

Mies served as director of the Bauhaus from 1930 until its closure in 1933.³ The Guardian reports that the Bauhaus closed on the morning of April 11, 1933, when Mies arrived for work as usual.⁴ According to The Guardian, a Gestapo letter dated July 21 offered to allow the school to reopen if its curriculum was changed to meet state demands and teachers Ludwig Hilberseimer and Vasili Kandinsky were removed.⁴

Hitler said in September 1933 that he rejected radical art but accepted a functionalism of crystalline clarity in design.⁴ The Guardian also reports that Mies joined the Reichskulturkammer and signed a motion supporting Hitler in the August 1934 referendum.⁴ The Guardian interprets Mies’s actions as efforts to seek favor with the Nazi state when architectural work was scarce; this interpretation is disputed.⁴

Mies emigrated to the United States in 1938 and was active in Chicago from that year until 1969.¹ He took a position at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which brought commissions for campus buildings and a master plan.^1,2 Knoll says Mies befriended and mentored Florence Knoll at IIT; she credited him as her most influential instructor.³

In 1948, Mies granted Knoll exclusive production rights to furniture designs including the Barcelona collection, the Brno chair, and the MR series.³ Indiana University has a facility named the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design Mies van der Rohe Building; its listed spaces include lecture, workshop, student collaboration, administrative, and office areas.⁵ Architectuul describes Mies’s work as influential, while saying that postmodernism displaced his approach as a style by the 1980s.² Mies died in Chicago, Illinois, on August 17, 1969.^1,2