Have you ever enjoyed the spectacle of tall skyscrapers in a large city and wondered how they came to be? Most of my questions regarding the history of this modern architectural form were answered when I recently visited “Mies in America,” at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Chicago.This retrospective of the architect Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe represents a wide range of his work here in America. It shows his achievement in evolving a modernist aesthetic tailored to meet the problems of post WW II America.
In Mies’ work there was a development of all encompassing building types necessitated by new technology. As Mies has said, “Whenever technology reaches its real fulfillment, it transcends into architecture.”
When Mies Van Der Rohe arrived in Chicago in 1937 at the age of 50, he had just finished a seven-year stint as Director of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany.
In his wide reading and architectural practice, he came to believe that the steel frame building represented a new paradigm for modern architecture. The idea of a universal building type applicable to a wide variety of situations came from his study of classical Greek civilization, especially as represented by The Parthenon. The steel frame emphasized the principle of structure through a marriage of new building technology and modern materials.
In 1950 Mies had an opportunity to put his ideas to the test. He had met a real estate developer, Herbert Greenward, who was just 29 and was interested in “making his mark,” by producing modernist statements in stone. A parcel of land became available on the shores of Lake Michigan, and Greenward hired Mies to design two steel and glass towers. What Mies designed were two towers, twenty-six stories high, and set at right angles to one another.
To emphasize the verticality of the structure, Mies had I-beams welded on to the black steel plate of the building. This technique of using I-beams became a new element in Mies’ architectural vocabulary.
This building became known simply as “860” and exercised a profound influence on all subsequent architectural projects. The style became ubiquitous, and in the heady atmosphere of post WW II capitalism, it became a signature design statement of all successful corporations.
The next step in Mies’ evolution of the skyscraper is also his ultimate achievement, The Seagram Building. It was clad with a curtain wall of bronze and gray-amber glass that rose to a height of 516 feet. The building sits on a large plaza, about 90 feet back from the street, which increased the monumentality of the structure. The plaza is completely empty except for two symmetrical pools on either side.
The Seagram stands on two-story stilts or columns that are recessed slightly behind the plane of the floor. Mies again used projected I-beams welded between each of the windows, but this time they were made of bronze. There is a narrower spacing in the treatment of the I-beams than at 860, which accentuates the profiling and underscores the vertical thrust of the building.
The building was immediately considered an unqualified success. The architect Peter Smithson, a British member of the Brutalist school of architecture, said, “Everything else now looks like a jumped-up supermart.”
Mies also put the steel frame to use in creating one of the most famous houses placed in a natural setting. The Farnsworth House is a testament to what Mies called his “skin and bones” architecture.
The building appears to float over a meadow adjacent to the Fox River in Illinois. It is a rectangular structure, which consists of two horizontal planes that form the floor and roof of the house. Steel H-columns hold together the floor and ceiling, and the whole living space is glass enclosed.
The steel frame was then painted white and silk shantung curtains in a natural hue were chosen to insure privacy. The floor and roof slabs are also projected out six feet beyond the structure. All of these features conspire to make the house look airborne.
This house is one of the best examples of Mies’ clear span buildings. It shows the dramatic effects that can be achieved when the design is edited down to its essentials.
As the director of the School of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology for twenty years, Mies Van Der Rohe was able to influence a whole generation of young architects in the positive values of the Bauhaus. In his inaugural address at the Institute, he said:
“Each material has its specific characteristics, which we must understand if we want to use it. This is no less true of steel and concerete (than of wood, brick, and stone). We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself.”
In the clear expression of structure in his buildings, Mies pushed the boundaries of Modernism, helping to develop an archtectural paradigm, which galvanized America’s post WW II economy.
“Mies in America” continues at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago through May 26. There are many lectures and tours available during its stay at MCA. The MCA phone number is (312) 397-4010.