Mies van der Rohe, the pioneer of modern architecture

March 27, 2020 at 09:02 p.m.

 

El March 27, 1886 Mies van der Rohe was born, German-American architect and industrial designer.

Pioneer modern architecture Along with Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, he was the last director of the Bauhaus.

Mies van der Rohe, began working in 1900, in his father's stone workshop until he got into the drawing of ornaments.

Seven years later, he made his first work, the Riehl house, which is why he has since started working in the office of Peter Behrens, developing an architectural style based on advanced structural techniques and Prussian classicism.

He also made innovative designs with steel and glass, in addition to designing the Perls House.

In 1912 he opened his own studio in Berlin, making the House on the Heerstrasse and the Urbig House.

However, the World War I it was crucial for Mies van der Rohe. Married to Ada Bruhn, with whom he had three daughters, he was posted to Romania during this period, separating his family.

 

The rise in America

 

As a member of novembergroup, together with van Doesburg, Lissitzky and Richter he published the magazine 'G' in 1923, being strongly influenced by the neoplasticism of van Doesburg.

But the rise of Nazism Power, which was frontally opposed to Bauhaus modernity, forced Mies van der Rohe to emigrate to the United States in 1937.

There, he accepted the position of director of the school of architecture of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and the direction of the architecture department of the Armor Institute.

Between 1948 and 1951, he realized one of his dreams, to build a glass skyscraper with the two towers of the Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago, and, later, the Commonwealth Promenade Apartments, also in the same city (1953-1956).

Among his most emblematic works are the Seagram Building, a 37-story glass and bronze skyscraper built in New York with his disciple Philip Johnson.

Mies sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times, creating a influential architecture of the XNUMXth century.

An architecture with minimal structures designed to create open spaces that flow without obstacles.

On August 17, 1969, Mies van der Rohe died in Chicago at the age of 83, after obtaining American citizenship.