Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) |
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe worked throughout his career to recognise that structure was the basis of his work and only through understanding a structure could he create art through architecture.
Though Mies himself acknowledged that this was not a new idea, his interest was not in inventing new forms like the work of Viollet-Le-Duc in Entretiens sur l'Architecture, rather in creating a clear and simple structure using construction and technology. He believed that by working to create a structure that could be applied consistently you could break away from the endless variation of the 'eternally new'. He once expressed this idea by saying: "It is absurd to invent arbitrary forms, historical and modernistic forms, which are not determined by construction, the true guardian of the spirit of the times" Mies van der Rohe (5) |
Even at the very start of his career, van der Rohe made clear the differentiation between structural and non-structural elements. The Barcelona Pavilion (1929) was in my opinion the first time Mies raised a building from the level of a structure to a work of art. It's clean lines and fine materials are made beautiful by the simplicity with which they are used.
The Farnsworth house (1945-50) is a spectacular physical representation of the relationship between Mies' love of structure and allowing the nature of the surroundings into the house; the steel and glass construction gives an uninterrupted view of the surroundings. The skill with which Mies omits certain practical aspects of the interior of the structure in order to maintain its simplistic style, whilst keeping the building capable of performing its function, shows the Farnsworth House to be one of Mies' most impressive designs. One of Mies' core beliefs was that Architecture was bound to the epoch; it is a visual representation of a historical moment. He sought to express this in his buildings, attempting to represent the significant driving forces of his era through architecture. Forces such as the economic order of society, the beginning of our mass society and the recent developments in science and technology, are shown in his designs. Looking at van der Rohe's past buildings such as the New National Gallery (1963-68) in West Berlin allow us to understand past moments in history. "Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space " Mies Van Der Rohe (7) Mies van der Rohe adopted the principle of less is more and this guided a lot of his work. He aimed to find a practical beauty in architecture that serves mankind. His work is clearly inspired by a simplistic yet inherently complex task of turning simple structures into works of art. |