MA-g
The Museum of Avant-garde

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Germany (1886—1969)

After an apprentice at furniture designer Bruno Paul, he was offered his first job at Peter Beherus. Member of the Deutscher Werkbund, he contributed to the foundation of the Gesamtkultur. After WWI he joined architectural groups in Berlin and dedicated himself to theoretical projects, drawings and sketches. In 1919 he saw the completion of Friedrichstrasse Office Building, which led to the Glass Skyscraper. In 1927 he planned with other leading modernist architects the Werkbund Exposition at Wissenhoft, marking the birth of the International style. He was commissioned the German Pavillion in Barcelona in 1929 and Villa Tugendhat in Brno. From 1930 he served as Director of the Bauhaus. In 1932 he founded the magazine G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung and soon after he founded the architectural group Der Ring. In 1939 he moved to US and became Director of the architecture faculty at the Chicago Armour Institute of Technology – the Second Chicago School.