Tuesday, March 27, 2012

LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE 126th anniversay

Today we commemorate the 126th birth anniversary of  legendary German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe .
Regarded as one of the pioneers of modern architechture, Mies is said to have never taken any formal architectural training. He worked with several architects before he developed his own style. Like many of his post-World War I contemporaries, Mies wanted to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times. He strived towards an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of free-flowing open space, according to Wikipedia. He is known to call his buildings "skin and bones" architecture.

A few years after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and the government-financed school he was heading was closed down by Nazis, Mies emigrated to the United States. In the US, Mies became the head of department of architecture at the Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, which later came to be known as the Illinois Institute of Technology.

 In 1944, Mies became an American citizen, severing all his ties from his native Germany. Mies architecture, with its origins in the German Bauhaus and western European style, became the popular choice for several American buildings like cultural and educational institutions, public agencies and many large corporations.

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