Designer Desire: Mies van der Rohe

_credit

Last week we featured a gorgeous Detroit townhouse designed by a very famous architect. It was only then that we realised that we’d never really highlighted him – just the occasional mention in passing about some of the furniture that he designed.

Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) is probably the most influential modernist architect to have ever lived – and we’re not saying that lightly. The skyscraper would not be what it is today without his forward-thinking ideas. The concept drawing (first image below) was created with the idea of using soaring glass and steel on the outside of a building – something that had never been done before. It was 1921 and the architectural world wasn’t ready; the design he submitted was unsuccessful.

He was a contemporary of other eminent Bauhaus architects and designers such as Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky and László Moholy-Nagy. He become director of the Bauhaus in 1930, remaining until he emigrated to Chicago in 1937 to become head of the architecture department at Illinois Institute of Technology.

You get an understanding of Mies van der Rohe, his methods and his beliefs from some of the quotes that have been attributed to him:

We must be as familiar with the functions of our building as with our materials. We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be

Architecture has the power to create order out of unholy confusion

We’ve selected just a few of jis many and varied ground-breaking buildings; he’s designed houses, apartment blocks, a kiosk, a petrol station and a public library.

We’ve placed them in chronological order, according to the date they were completed, to illustrate his progression.

Unsuccessful 1921 design entry for the Friedrichstrasse skyscraper competition

German Pavilion designed for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain

Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic. Built between 1929 & 1930

Interior of Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic

Kiosk built in 1932 as part of the Bauhaus buildings, Dessau

Landhaus Lemke, built in 1933 in Alt-Hohenschönhausen, Berlin

Farnsworth House, designed & built between 1945 and 1951 in Plano, Illinois

Interior of Farnsworth House, designed & built between 1945 and 1951 in Plano, Illinois

860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, completed in 1951 and situated on the Shore of Lake Michigan in Streeterville, Chicago, Illinois

S. R. Crown Hall (built 1950–1956) - College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois — S. R. Crown Hall (built 1950–1956) – College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois

Seagram Building, 375 Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1958

Gas station, Nun's Island, Montreal - 1969 — Gas station, Nun’s Island, Montreal – 1969

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington DC, completed in 1972

Additional image credits:

MOMA | Wikiarquitectura | Wikipedia

Get their look: Mies van der Rohe Detroit townhouse

_credit

We’ve just learned about a fabulous Mid-century Modern housing estate in Michigan. The photo above is of a Mies van der Rohe Detroit townhouse; located in the city’s historic Lafayette Park.

Completed in 1963, there are a total of 162 three-storey townhouses and a further 24 two-storey court houses. These homes are owned and operated as a co-operative. As well as the town and court houses, Lafayette Park consists of a further 3 components designed by the architect; the Plaisance (a public park), the Pavillion and the East and West Towers. With an area covering 46 acres, it’s the world’s largest Mies van de Rhoe project. Interspersed between the housing are integrated children’s play areas, open space meadows, and pedestrian walkways. There’s also a school and retail outlets within the development.

In 1996, in recognition of its importance in the history of architecture and urban renewal, the Mies van der Rohe Residential District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 2015, Lafayette Park was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Mies van der Rohe Detroit townhouse units come up for sale fairly seldom, and don’t come cheap – especially if it’s a courtyard unit which boasts the addition of an outside area. One of these would set you back about $600,000… with steep monthly maintenance fees of around $800-$1,400.

Get their look

Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Cube glass terrarium

3-piece peekaboo acrylic nesting table set

George Mulhauser Plycraft lounge chair

Bertoia Diamond armchair

Barcelona low coffee table

12-light sputnik chandelier

Cube glass terrarium

3-piece peekaboo acrylic nesting table set

George Mulhauser Plycraft lounge chair

Bertoia Diamond armchair

Barcelona low coffee table

12-light sputnik chandelier

Cube glass terrarium

3-piece peekaboo acrylic nesting table set

George Mulhauser Plycraft lounge chair

Bertoia Diamond armchair

Barcelona low coffee table

12-light sputnik chandelier

Designer Desire: Alberto Ponis

Last week, we featured Michele Busiri Vici, the man responsible for designing many of the beautiful villas in the area of Sardinia we visited recently. Another architect with breath-taking buildings in the same area is Alberto Ponis.

In the early 1960s, Alberto Ponis (b. 1933) worked in London with Erno Goldfinger and Sir Denys Lasdun (working with the latter on the National Theatre on the city’s South Bank). In 1964, he set up his own studio in Sardinia.

There’s a monograph entitled, The Inhabited Pathway: The Built Work of Alberto Ponis in Sardinia, which features eight of his projects built between 1965 and 1998. In it, Ponis explains:

I began to arrange houses in such a way that I could place particular emphasis even on just a single massive block of granite, or on a Mediterranean macchia hedge, or on an old cork oak tree… The footprint of the house, when the spaces are very narrow, coincides with the creation of its plan, which simply cannot be born on the drawing board… When a rock remains as if imprisoned inside the house, then the integration is complete and the client is happy. The architect is too, as he hasn’t had to invent anything except what already existed.

Another book, Alberto Ponis: Architettura in Sardegna by Sebastiano Brandolini, covers 40 of the architect’s buildings created between the 60s and the present day.

The Right Rock, Alberto Ponis from corradocattinari on Vimeo

Image credits:

Designer Desire: Michele Busiri Vici

_{Villa Olivastri, Porto Rafael}

We spent a week and a bit in Sardinia last month; as well as the landscape and the beaches, the thing that we enjoyed looking at the most was the architecture. After a bit of online research, we discovered that Michele Busiri Vici was the man who was responsible for many of the buildings in the area.

Rome-born Michele Busiri Vici (1894-1981) descended from generations of architects and town planners. He designed the award-winning Italian Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. He’s credited as being the creator of the ‘Mediterranean Style’ of architecture; consisting of organic, white-washed forms, terra-cotta floor and roof tiles and incorporating the landscape into the interior.

He was one of the architects commissioned by the Aga Khan to create Porto Cervo and the Costa Smeralda – a playground for the Aga Khan and his wealthy, international jet-set friends.

A few years later in the 1960s in Porto Rafael, (the village on the north eastern coast of Sardinia where we stayed) he was commissioned by Raphael Neville, Count of Berlanga de Duero to design the Piazzetta and the Chapel of Saint Rita. He also designed various private villas in the pretty coastal resort.

_{La Piazzetta, Porto Rafael}