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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Lake Shore Drive Apartments
900 North Lake Shore
Chicago

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Crown Hall
State Street near 34th Street
Chicago

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Lake Shore Drive Apartments
860 North Lake Shore
Chicago

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The Farnsworth House
14520 River Road
Plano, Il

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The Federal Center
230 South Dearborn Street
Chicago

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IBM BUILDING
330 North Wabash
Chicago

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Ludwig Mies was born on March 27, 1886 in Prussia.  He worked  for his father as a stone cutter before moving to Berlin where he joined Interior Designer, Bruno Paul. Later he apprenticed at the studio of Peter Behrens.  Despite his lack of formal education, Ludwig Mies transformed himself from stonecutter to architect, changing his name to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and taking independent residential commissions, employing the vocabulary of nineteenth century neo-classicism.

After WWI Mies joined Europe's avant gard.  His transition to modernist was highlighted with The Barcelona Pavilion and the Villa Tugendhat.  Architectural commissions, however, largely disappeared after 1929. Mies served briefly as the last director of the Bauhaus.

 

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In 1937 he emigrated to the United States where he accepted a position as head of architecture at the Armour Institute.  This appointment included the commission to masterplan the campus and to design its buildings. Here he applied his philosophies of "universal space" and "eradication of the superficial" He died in Chicago on August 17, 1969.