Mies Van Der Rohe Flashcards
Who was Mies Van der Rohe?
He was inspired by Berlage
Worked for three years in Behren’s office
The collapse of Germany at the end of WW1 left Mies wanting a more organic architecture.
He is interested as glass as a complex reflective surface.
He had a preoccupation with the creation of unobstructed, clear span single storey, unitary volume - this is shown in the Farnsworth house and Crown Hall.
Describe the German Pavilion in Barcelona.
1929.
Use of traditional materials
Classical associateions of a regular 8 column grid.
Pavilion became an occasion for classic piece furniture.
Describe the Tugendhat House.
Brno, Czechoslovakia.
Adapted the spatial concern of the German Pavilion.
Wrights Robie House influenced the compartmentalised planning.
Describe the Riechsbank, Berlin
This shows the start of a transformation in Mies’ work from informal asymmetry to asymmetrical monumentality.
He established a preference for symmetry and tectonic.
it was regarded as the first essay in monumentalisation of the technique where by technology was teh cultural manifestion of modern man.
IIT Campus, Chicago
‘graph paper’ curtain walls
Surfaces animated by sky scape reflections
Struggling with the generic relation of column to wall (wall largely glass)
Final versions - columns are integrated into the wall.
Crown Hall, IIT
Took Mies away from his earlier career
Like the Palladian composition Crown Hall is symmetrical unlike Palladian not a hierarchically ordered organisation
Seagram Building
Became Mies’ Break through building as he achieved interweaving fenestration with structure.
