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P R O F I L E | L U D W I G M I E S V A N D E R R O H E
From the Bauhaus to the Seagram
Building.
Always concurrent with Mies's architecture
practice were activities in and around
architecture, notably teaching. He was the
final director of the Bauhaus, the hyper-
influential German school that would finally
shutter under pressure from the National
Socialists. Arriving in the U.S. in 1937 Mies
settled in Chicago, where he would set
up his architecture practice and lead the
School of Architecture at Illinois Institute
of Technology (IIT) for a game-changing
20 years.
He implemented a curriculum—new for its
time—that was multi-disciplinary, insisting
that students were skilled across the
spectrum of building, design and design
thinking. This was another innovation, one
Mies brought from the Bauhaus. And he
left yet another legacy at IIT in the form
of 20 International Style buildings he
personally designed in the 1940s and
1950s. Then there was the Edith Farnsworth
House, a rare residential project by Mies.
(Completed in 1951, the starkly rectilinear
glass residence is a National Historic
Landmark that lives on as a museum.)
Around this time Mies also completed
860-880 Lake Shore Drive, a duo of
cleancut glass-and-steel apartment
towers that captured the glittering city and
the endless blue waters of Lake Michigan.
This project was transformative to the city's
skyline and a full expression of what Mies
had termed "skin-and-bones" architecture.
It was another first by the architect—an
exciting new template for high-rise living
filled with natural light, and connected to
the city and nature all at once. And a fitting
precursor to the Seagram Building, which
he would embark on in only a few short
years.
Today one can pass by a glass-clad high
rise like the Seagram Building in any city
and almost shrug at such a common sight,
which is perhaps the point of the architect's
genius. "Architecture is the will of the epoch
translated into space," Mies wrote in a book
accompanying his 1947 MOMA show.
"Until this simple truth is clearly recognized,
the new architecture will be uncertain and
tentative." For he was a man who fully
grasped the will of his time—and knew
precisely when to realize the skyscraper
visions he'd held for over 40 years. "Not
yesterday, not tomorrow," he reflected,
"only today can be given form."
and untraditional as spaceships—yet each
expressed a singular concept expressed
with disarming clarity, and distilled
exactingly by Mies in charcoal. "For we
are not trying to please people," he would
later tell LIFE (Mar 18, 1957) of his design
approach: "We are driving to the essence
of things."
As eye-raising as they were, the plans
were no puff-smoke visions. They were
technically buildable and would be realized
as soon as conditions aligned, which in the
case of the Seagram Building would occur
some 40 years later on a different continent.
Top, Another first by Mies: Post-WWII residential towers at 860-880 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Credit: Marc Rochkind, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
legalcode. Bottom, Another view of the Seagram Building. • Photo credit: Ken Ohyama, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode
28 DIGS.NET
| 10.6.23
