Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
'A bit of a bastard': Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in his Chicago apartment in 1964. Photograph: Werner Blaser Werner Blaser/PR
Biography
"God is in the detail"
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), a German-born architect and educator, is widely acknowledged as one of the 20th century's greatest architects. By emphasizing open space and revealing the industrial materials used in construction, he helped define modern architecture.
It was in 1966 when Mies began suffering from cancer of the esophagus. He died three years later in his adoptive hometown, Chicago. Family surrounded him at his deathbed and, at a memorial service in Crown Hall, the general public stood alongside the leading names in architecture to mourn the architect.
In 1956, famed architect Eero Saarinen spoke at the dedication of Mies' masterwork, S.R. Crown Hall, and lauded him as Chicago's third great artist, placing Mies in the prestigious lineage of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. "Great architecture is both universal and individual," Saarinen said at the dedication, "The universality comes because there is an architecture expressive of its time. But the individuality comes as the expression of one man's unique combination of faith and honesty and devotion and belief in architecture." After 20 years as the director of architecture at IIT, Mies resigned in 1958 at the age of 72. In 1959, the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded Mies its Gold Medal and the following year he received the AIA Gold Medal, the highest award given by the American Association of Architects. President Lyndon Johnson presented Mies with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.