Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

"Less is more"

German Architect, took the American nationality (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1886 - Chicago, 1969). His father was a craftsman, and gives him a taste for the ideal of technical perfection.

Short Chronology :

Mies Van der Rohe starts working as a draftsman in the early 20^th C. He works for a furniture designer between 1905& 1907 (Bruno Paul) and for Peter Behrens between 1908 and 1911 (where he’s introduced to neo-classicism and to some modern techniques).

1921-1925 : head of the Architecture Department of the November Gruppe.

Influenced and part of De Stijl movement : interest for the ideal of this group : studies of proportions based on the interactions between verticality and horizontality

In 1926, he is part of a group project with Le Corbusier et Walter Gropius and they conceive the Weissenhof lot in Stuttgart (1927).

Weissenhot lot in Stuttgart (1927)

In 1928-29, the Spanish Pavilion for Barcelona’s exhibition the same year is built according to his plan. It’s a technical feat : the load-bearing walls are replaced by poles, and circulation can be organized and modified freely thanks to screens that replace the walls. At the same time, he contributes to the foundings of industrial design by drawing a line of furnitures resorting to steel instead of traditional materilals.

1930-1933 : Mies Van der Rohe is the head of the Bauhaus movement up until it gets closed by the Nazis. His production in that period is more limited. He flees Germany in 1937 for the US, where he’s soon offered to become the head of the IIT’s Architecture department. He builds buildings for rhe Institute using apparent steel poles. He conceives other monuments throughout the US, from the Seagram Building in NYC, to the Federal Center of Chicago.Soon before his death, he designed the new Fine Arts Museum of Berlin (1968)

What does MVDR’s carrer show about the unclear boundaries between Art, Design & Architecture?

-Although MVDR’s work is not art per se (as something which status is affirmed by its uselessness and absence of practical functions) and relies heavily on engeneering, he influenced the German artistic life of his time and adhered to ideological streams that transcended traditional boundaries between human cultural & artistic practices.

-His job at the head of the Bauhaus movement constrained to him to deal with politics in a way that is often considered to be the Fine Arts’ turf. Indeed, although he came in power there with the goal of depoliticizing the school and clearing it of its communists, he nonetheless had to negociate and oppose to the Nazis who managed to close the school definitively in 1933.

-The creation of the Novembergruppe was also linked to the Weimar Republic and its expressionist style blurred the boundaries among a group of artists ranging from writers (Bertolt Brecht) to painters (Otto Dix), musicians and architects (Gropius, MVDR). Moreover, the Novembergruppe, De Stijl, and Bauhaus, groups to which MVDR felt close to, all had social ambitions at the vanguard of 20^th C art, seeking to reconcile art and cratfsmanship so as to propose an artistic response to social issues and to invent entire lifestyles.

-Hence, MVDR’s career is perhaps one of the rare paths which can be sanctified just like art would be in spite of the fact ascetic functionality was at the core of his aesthetic.

-MVDR puts an end to the house's defined boudaries and closedness with its environment. This innovation can be compared to Mondrian's approach to painting and his decision to hang his canvases by one of their corners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXGHTTHZq-o&feature=related

Mies Van der Rohe and his cantilever chair

Another thing that must be noticed about Mies can der Rohe is his use of new techniques and materials. This use is crucial in blurring boundaries and expressing a vision of architecture.
MVDR gives up the use of bearing walls. He uses steel pillars instead wich allow his buildings to be lighter. There are only light screens that keep the building open and do not give the impression that the building is a box. This is particularly clear for the German Pavilion or the Stugendhat house.
Moreover,MVDR uses a lot the cantilever technique, notably for his roofs which are almost floating in the air and do not seem to be supported by anything. This allows him to give the impression that the outside is a prolongation of the inside and that is very important in his architecture.
Finally, he uses the very fashionable tecnhique of tubular steel that he applies to a cantilever. That gives the chairs that Morgane will talk about.

Cantilever Chair (1927)

The Cantilever Chair

- created for the exhibition "The Dwelling" shown at the Weissenhof housing estate in Stuttgart, Germany

- use of new techniques (tubular steel) -> will to express the modern age

- building of an archetype

- comparison with Mart Stam's and Marcel Breuer's ones