High and Lowrise Building Complex, Perspective Sketch

Ludwig Mies van der RoheWW-1946-038734

1946·Graphite on cream wove paper·15.1 × 21.1 cm (6 × 8 1/4 in.)

<p>Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s work for the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology continued through the late 1940s and early 1950s, and led to the development of new building types that he would later employ for independent commissions. One of these new models joined low- and high-rise buildings, a combination he first employed on the east side of the IIT campus, where he constructed three mid-rise dormitory buildings and the low-rise Commons Building and campus chapel. Mies’s interest in this type can be seen in this early sketch, which suggests the more monumental buildings of his Chicago Federal Center complex, constructed between 1958 and 1974.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1946
Medium: Graphite on cream wove paper
Dimensions: 15.1 × 21.1 cm (6 × 8 1/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Artist

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Drawing

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect and furniture designer whose stripped-down aesthetic defined modernism in the twentieth century. He pioneered the steel-frame glass building and the open-plan interior, reducing architectural form to its essential structural elements. His Barcelona Chair and Brno Chair became canonical pieces of twentieth-century design, their tubular steel frames and leather surfaces exemplifying his dictum 'less is more.' After emigrating to the United States in 1938, he directed the Illinois Institute of Technology and designed the Farnsworth House and the Seagram Building in New York. His influence on post-war architecture and industrial design remains foundational.

Aachen, Germany

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