Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig (1886-1969)

German architect. A leading exponent of the international style, he practised in the USA from 1937. He succeeded Walter Gropius as director of the Bauhaus 1929-33. He designed the bronze-and-glass Seagram building in New York City 1956-59 and numerous apartment buildings.

Mies van der Rohe was born at Aachen, and learned the elements of building from his father, a master-mason, before being apprenticed to a firm of architect-decorators. In 1905 he went to Berlin, and in 1908 he entered the office of Peter Behrens where he met Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. He remained there till 1911, then spent a year at The Hague. From 1919, in Berlin, he designed houses and skyscrapers. He designed the German pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona exhibition, before becoming director of the Bauhaus in 1930 on the recommendation of Gropius. In 1937 he went to the USA; in 1938 he became director of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology at Chicago, for which he designed a new campus on characteristically functional lines from 1941. He also designed the Farnsworth House, 1946-50; the Lake Shore Apartments, Chicago, 1957; the New National Gallery, Berlin, 1968; and the IBM Building, Chicago.