MIES VAN DER ROHE

Ludwig Mies was born in 1886 in Aachen(Aix-la-Chapelle),Germany. He added his mother's maiden name in later so that his name changed into Mies Van Der Rohe. He was the student who used to study under the progressive architect Peter Behrens, and followed the nineteenth-century German architect Karl Fridrich Schinkel's tradition. Mies explored for creating a practical architecture without the shackle of all past formalism in his whole design-life times. He undertaken the architect design jobs, the journal report work and also the organizing for some exhibitions. There were many buildings and events famous for Mies's ideal integration of construction and interior decoration in his early growth stage about from 1921 to 1933, such as the projects for commercial buildings in Berlin(1921-23), the Weissenhof Development near Stuttgart(1927), the epoch-making German Pavilion(1929) at the International Exposition in Brno, Czechoslovakia and the administration buildings of the Bauhaus(1930-33) in Dessau and Berlin.

When Mies became the head of the School of Architecture in Chicago in 1938, he continually designed many campus buildings at the Armour Institute. He kept the tradition of the Chicago School that using the steel-frame method of construction to the skyscrapers. And at the same time, Mies also administrated and developed his own designs in this institute too. He maintained the same unitary character in all of the buildings.

Clinging to his uncompromising consistency and his attention to even the smallest detail, Mies successfully finished his landmark creations of his design career, the two apartment towers on Lake Shore Drive(1948-51) and in the Farnsworth House(1950-51).These work did not only to be built as an incredibly concrete model for all builders working, but also made many artists begin to following Mies's uncompromising approach in creating at that time.

Mies's effort to develop his furniture designs in relation to and in harmony with his buildings was always strong and lively. In fact, people would all agreed that he is the only one who could characterize his works as architecture taken all the way down to the furniture. Of particular importance in his regard are the Weissenhof chair(1927) and the Barcelona set (1929), as well as the Tugendhat and Brno chairs(1930-31).
In spite of as an architect or as a furniture designer, Mies's works always showed his special views on the possibilities and limitations.The ultimate goal of his work was to infuse order and truth in his buildings, whose functionalism and beauty were designed to serve people.

Mies was interested in the design of furniture, particularly of chairs, armchairs and stools, chaise-longues, etc. And at that time, although the studios and workshops of the Bauhaus had had the focal point of the experiments that the application of the tubular metal structure to provide an aethereal,light but strong support to the seats and backs of a chair, Mies van der Rphe still was the one who pioneered the design and production of chairs and armchairs in tubular steel, with Mart Stam and Marcel Breuer.

In the case of Barcelona, Mies designed the furniture with an unique character named "Barcelona chair". To be the same group creations, the corresponding ottoman stools and the two types of table were designed for the same place. All of them were not the exactly furnitures for mass production, but the creations of a series of ceremonial pieces designed for a very specific formal function: for the inauguration and the opening ceremony.

The only two "Barcelona chair" in existence were the royal seats on which Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia sat during the opening ceremony.The chairs and their corresponding ottomans were designed on the principle of a lightweight, almost aethereal structure on which the supporting elements rested.The details about the chair design is like this: Starting out from the traditional scissors shape formed by the two x-shaped elements fixed and articulated at a central point, Mies designed a crosspiece composed of two solid plates which were soldered together at the mid-point to form the rigid framework by means of the meeting of two of these crosspieces with transverse braces, also of solid metal. The supporting surfaces in the original version were cushions of white kidskin, upholstered in the English Chester style.