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Restoring the “God Box”: Mies van der Rohe's Carr Chapel at IIT
Get PDFPerhaps no building designed by Mies van der Rohe better exemplifies his dictum, “less is more”, than Carr Chapel. Its rectangular prismatic form and unadorned architecture led to its being called “the God Box” by the students it served at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). When a building is so simple and direct, every little detail needs to understood and attended to with great care in its conservation treatment. Combined with a chronic lack of funding, a seemingly simple project can become quite challenging and take over a decade to complete
Parallel Modernities: Architectural Narratives on Southeast Asia
Get PDFComing from a common goal of preserving and promoting a sustainable future, a platform has been created to discuss documentation, conservation and reuse of modern architecture based on three main concepts: regeneration, equality and openness. Regeneration by, through training and education, involving the younger generations in the process of recognition and conservation. Equality, based on the respect for difference with no imposition of ideas or methodologies. Openness by promoting exchange through thoughtful cooperation. Although ASEAN is coming to be united in terms of politics, economy and culture, the background of its member countries is varied, having experienced diverse European colonization. In an increasingly global world, these nations are facing changes in the significance of their colonial past in relation to the postcolonial present. Between identity and nationalist demand, local knowledge and universal education, modern materials and tropical climate, different architectural discourses have been produced showing that the most interesting way to approach the postcolonial issue is through the idea of exchange
Modern Architecture in Southeast Asia, an Introduction. Asia, North-South-West-East
Get PDFThe Asian economy began to rebound in the early 2000s. Cities were, once again, expanding along with the population and industrialization. Architectural projects, after having halted for a few years, were coming back providing new opportunities for Asian practices. Sharing optimism as well as anxieties, Asian architects and scholars were looking forward to the future as well as once again taking a glimpse back at their recent architectural past, roughly from the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century. With this opportunity, they decided to take a moment to reflect on how Asian cities, landscapes, and their architectural heritage were shaped, altered, grown in the process of Asian societies embracing modernity
Baukunst and Zeitwille between Europe and America
Get PDFMies enjoyed great prominence in Europe and America. Starting in Europe, his first incursions resulted in the German Pavilion for the Barcelona International Exhibition (1929), the Tugendhat House (1930) and the Krefeld silk factory and houses. The Illinois Institute of Technology (1943-1957), the Lake Shore Drive (1951), the Farnsworth House (1951), the Seagram building (1958) and the Toronto-Dominion Centre (1969), bear witness to his work in North America. Back in Berlin, The Neue Nationalgalerie (1968) testifies to the sublime and perfect achievement of his path towards Baukunst and Zeitwille. These ideas, which one may translate, respectively, as the art of building and the will of the time, are anchored in the Mies’s belief that architecture should be metaphysically charged with creative life force. This led him to the modern achievement of developing a new kind of freedom of movement in space, following his sense of order and his very unique conception of urban space
Restoration of Crown Hall
Get PDFThis essay documents the research of restoration and modifications to Mies van der Rohe’s masterwork, Crown Hall, the heart of the Chicago campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Restoration was necessitated by 5 decades of use during which the building had fallen into major disrepair. During the restoration, practical and philosophical issues arose from the building’s landmark designation by regional and national authorities. The essay describes the forensic research that preceded design, investigation and selection of alternate materials modifications to the building envelope. This includes a detailed description of modifications balancing original materials and systems with current codes. The essay concludes by placing the restoration of Crown Hall in the larger context of preservation of modern buildings and the threat to these works which, unlike Crown Hall, are rarely protected by landmark designation
The Neue Nationalgalerie: the Refurbishment of a Modern Monument
Get PDFAfter 46 years of continuous use, Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin closed its doors to start works on its refurbishment. Being a masterpiece of the second half of the 20th century, conventional standards in terms of dealing with high-level heritage must be adhered to. The quality of this refurbishment can be found in the project’s holistic approach. Not only by taking into account the visual integrity but also by paying attention to its physical substance, time-bound and classical elements, the added value of the project is created
Fritz Neumeyer
Get PDFIn June 2017, Ana Tostões interviewed Fritz Neumeyer, reference expert on Mies van der Rohe, in order to discuss the importance of Mies’s legacy. Neumeyer conducted a deep research on Mies's writings and intellectual activity that has resulted in the worldwide renowned publication Mies van der Rohe. Das kunstlose Wort. Gedanken zur Baukunst [The Artless Word: Mies Van der Rohe on the Building Art] (Berlin, 1986; Cambridge/London, 1991; Madrid/Paris/Milan, 1996; Seoul 2007 — see p. 93) offering a precursor critical anthology of Mies theoretical corpus
“Zur Neuen Welt” — Towards the New World. Ludwig Mies and his Architectural Youth in Aachen
Get PDFLudwig Mies van der Rohe's personal and professional connections to his hometown Aachen in Germany are mostly unknown today. Through the analysis of both old and new written and graphic sources, the authors give an insight into Mies van der Rohe's lifelong bond to his hometown. In the personal friendships, his friends Ferdinand Goebbels and Franz Dominick play a key role. Furthermore, the paper presents previously unknown buildings that young Mies was working on in the office of Albert Schneiders around 1905. One of the buildings, the house “Zur Neuen Welt” for client Joseph Oeben, is still standing and represents a lively example of the stylistic search in architecture after the turn of the millennium, and an early step towards Mies van der Rohe's architectural maturity
Master Plans and Deviations. Mies van der Rohe's involvement in urban development at Verseidag Krefeld and IIT Chicago
Get PDFIn the few written sources about Mies van der Rohe’s Krefeld silk factory, Verseidag (1930–1938), the urban layout and building design have been repeatedly compared with his Campus master plan for the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (IIT) (1939–41). New research based on rediscovered plan material from Krefeld allow for a detailed description of the historic development of the Verseidag plant, including the identification of master plans, later deviations and their abandonment. With this knowledge, a substantial comparison of the two projects may be established that shows surprisingly strong parallels both in their urban form and their later transformations
Modern Movement in Myanmar
Get PDFThis paper highlights the course of the development of modern architecture in Myanmar, a country with an original and vital architectural tradition. There are case studies of well-known foreign and Myanmar architects who dealt with the relationship of spatial, cultural and environmental factors of modern architecture. Some architectural masterpieces created during the second half of the 20th century between 1950 and 1970 in Yangon are presented in this article in order to highlight the inspiration, imagination and limitation of these pioneer architects. The main reason for selecting these case studies are not only because of the influences from the outside world occurred in the post-independence period, but they can reveal the intertwined logic of the nation’s identity-building. They reveal the new consciousness of globalization as well as the development of regionalism