Archinect - News

An investigation into an early design of the Barcelona Pavilion

2024-05-29T20:24:00-04:00

Really, the differences between the plan and the final construction are not great. Then again, I make this tentative conclusion, that our salvation depends on attention to small things, to what lies obvious before us, once seen clearly, felt within, once absorbed. Mies said similar.

Gary Garvin, a name familiar to many Archinectors, delves into the lesser-known early design phase (Plan I) of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion. This study highlights the architectural and conceptual distinctions between the initial plan and the final structure. Garvin’s detailed analysis provides insights into Mies’s design philosophy and the modernist principles that influenced the Pavilion’s evolution.

Garvin begins by outlining the key differences between Plan I and the completed Pavilion. He notes how the initial design featured more pronounced structural elements, which were later refined to create the iconic open and fluid spaces of the final version. Garvin emphasizes Mies’s intent to balance form and function, highlighting how these early designs reflect the architect’s experimentation with spatial concepts.

The investigation delves into the philosophical underpinnings of Mies’s work, discussing his commitment to the principles of modernism, such as minimalism, the us...

Oliver Wainwright on the 'elegant white steel and glass pavilion' crowned 2024 EU Mies van der Rohe Award winner

2024-04-30T11:48:00-04:00

A lightweight university study centre designed to be easily disassembled has won the prize for the best building in Europe. Longevity, permanence and a sense of immutability might be the ambition of most architects, but Gustav Düsing and Max Hacke would be delighted to see their building adapted and reconfigured, or ultimately dismantled and moved somewhere else altogether.

Wainwright reflects on the "impossibly slender" pavilion which was revealed as the winner of the 2024 EU Mies van der Rohe Award last week in an article that also includes the perspectives of the pavilion's architects, Gustav Düsing and Max Hacke.

Related on Archinect: University study pavilion wins the 2024 EU Mies van der Rohe Award with a reconfigurable design. Photo by Iwan Baan.

Located on the campus of the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, the pavilion has been designed to allow for variations of student activities within a flexible layout, described by the award organizers as a "counter-model to spaces of hierarchical knowledge transfer."

Another winning aspect is the hybrid structure's ability to be disassembled and remounted. Individual components are capable of reuse in line with a principle called the "future material depot," which contributes to its role in the circular economy.

Is Chicago ready to become the climate city of tomorrow? A new exhibition at the CAC explores an 'Energy Revolution'

2022-05-04T18:48:00-04:00

To coincide with the recent Earth Day celebrations, the Chicago Architecture Center has opened up its archives for a look inside the revolution that could restore the city, traditionally thought to be a mecca for the seminal works of 19th- and 20th-century architectural pioneers, to the top of the new mantle of sustainable design.

Titled Energy Revolution, the exhibition is being curated by Farr Associates founder and former Congress for New Urbanism Chair Doug Farr, an urbanist and outspoken sustainability advocate whose roots in the city extend nearly 40 years. Farr says one of his main goals was to “get architects to bring their clients to the show and start asking themselves the question: Can our next building be one that is all-electric and has no fossil-fuel connections?”

Image courtesy the Chicago Architecture Center

The answer is invariably tied to the direction shown by the city’s elected officials. On Friday, Chicago officially submitted a Climate Action Plan that includes ...

Two landmark Chicago skyscrapers are teetering on the brink of demolition by the GSA

2022-04-14T19:06:00-04:00

Why would the U.S. General Services Administration now raise a hind leg to this legacy by wrecking the Century and Consumers buildings, two early 20th Century skyscrapers at 202 and 220 S. State Street? The buildings’ demolition would create an economic and pedestrian dead zone on State Street, something neither the street nor the city can afford. And it would be a shameful waste of some really good Chicago architecture.

A $141 million adaptive reuse plan was initially approved in 2017 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but the city decided to change direction only a few months later after an FBI security assessment determined that the two buildings’ continued existence creates too much risk for the iconic adjacent Chicago Federal Center.

Per the group Preservation Chicago: “The Century Building is historically unique for two important reasons. First, the distinct vertical expression of the building’s exterior elevations portends the transition from the Chicago School buildings of the late 19th century to the early decades of the 20th century. Emphasis of verticality is achieved with strong vertical bands and understated recessed spandrels. Second, the overall design of the façade ornament is a rare example of Neo-Manueline (inspired by the historic Portuguese style) influenced architecture in the Midwest. The proliferation of complex ornament around building openings, such as windows and doors, features s...

Mies van der Rohe's rediscovered early-50s design opens at Indiana University

2022-02-22T16:17:00-05:00

A rediscovered 70-year-old Mies van der Rohe design that was reimagined for the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University has been inaugurated after the six-year-old institution announced the official opening of one of the most interesting pieces of academic architecture in recent memory.

Based on the architect’s abandoned 1952 plans for a fraternity on the Bloomington campus, the team at Thomas Phifer and Partners were able to rework the original design into an expanded home for the school’s faculty and students beginning in the spring semester.

Image © Anna Powell Denton

The process began in 2013 after Sidney Eskenazi, a member of the fraternity that commissioned the design originally, informed IU’s then-president Michael A. McRobbie about drawings that had previously been thought by many to have been lost. A research endeavor thus was conducted with assistance from MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago that unearthed the additional documentation essential...

New photos of Mecanoo's refurbished Mies-designed Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in D.C.

2021-11-19T17:47:00-05:00

Mecanoo has shared updated imagery of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. the firm revamped together with OTJ Architects.

Photographers Robert Benson and Trent Bell have provided new photos detailing the modernization of the landmark building that was completed in 1972 as Mies van der Rohe’s only library design and final act as an architect.

Following a three-year transformation, the library opened to the public on September 25th but has gone largely undocumented thanks to restrictions over the coronavirus, which shut out much of the renovated areas from public view since its official reopening in October 2020.

Scroll down to have a look at a selection of the latest photos and learn more about the project here.

Image © Trent Bell

Image © Robert Benson

Image © Trent Bell

Image © Robert Benson

...

Edith Farnsworth House: Name change emphasizes Farnsworth’s role in creating an American masterpiece

2021-10-19T12:38:00-04:00

As part of the house’s 70th-anniversary celebration next month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced that the iconic Farnsworth House will be renamed the Edith Farnsworth House in order to better recognize the cultural and architectural contributions of its namesake, Dr. Edith Farnsworth.

The name change coincides with the trust’s “Where Women Made History” campaign, which now recognizes Farnsworth for her rightful place as a doyenne of American high culture.

Edith Farnsworth (left) and Beth Dunlap, 1951. Image © William Dunlap

According to a press release: “Ahead of her time in the post-World War II era, Edith Farnsworth lived an independent life of cultural and intellectual exploration and discovery. For decades, her story, as well as her pivotal role in the creation of this landmark, has not received the prominence it deserves.”

Image © Edith Farnsworth Papers, The Newberry Library

Ever the bon vivant, Farnsworth’s eye for artistic talent lead her to Mies van ...

Neue Nationalgalerie finally reopens in Berlin following a David Chipperfield Architects-led restoration

2021-08-24T13:16:00-04:00

Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie is finally back open following a six-year, $160 million refurbishment by David Chipperfield Architects.

The original Mies van der Rohe building from 1968 now features a restored glass facade, expanded exhibition space, sculpture garden, and improved LED lighting.

Chipperfield incorporated an earlier unrealized design for a Bacardi Rum corporation building in Cuba. The building itself was taken apart in 35,000 individual segments which each required their own 16-digit bar codes.

“We had to turn over every stone,” DCA’s Martin Reichert told the Art Newspaper last week before the museum reopening. “But we had to treat it with the same care shown by restorers handling a world-famous artwork. After 50 years of use with no refurbishment, there were a great many deficits—this was not just a case of fixing things, it was about making sure it survives the next 30 to 40 years without additional renovation work.”

A mysterious painting could be an earlier plan for one of Mies van der Rohe's most revered residential projects

2021-08-09T17:32:00-04:00

“It’s been fifty years since Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s death and the details of his international career have been carefully archived. But a mysterious painting has surfaced that reveals what may be an early version of his master plan in Newark”

The supposed painting depicts what could have been a disastrous expansion of the footprint of van der Rohe’s iconic 1960 apartment complex.

Courtesy of Newark Public Library Digital Collections

His Colonnade Apartments are perhaps the foremost example of the “Towers in the Park” typology synonymous with the International Style in the northeast. The painting depicts a seven-tower scheme that expands the plot north of 6th Avenue by several blocks. A local architect named Gabriel Dal’Maso reportedly came into its possession after seeing it in a 2011 documentary about the Colonnade by the Austrian filmmaker Heidrun Holzfeind.

Dal’Maso began inspecting the painting in the midst of a one-man stand against a proposed development at an abandoned area adjacent to the Pavillion towers, where he was living at the time. The towers were sold into private hands in 2018 and again earlier this year to the tune of $77 million. JerseyDigs has more on the mystery Mies plans here.

...

Mies van der Rohe design for Indiana University is being built, 70 years later

2021-06-18T12:21:00-04:00

Indiana University (IU) has shared an update of their Mies Building at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. The scheme, currently under construction, realizes a recently rediscovered 1952 design by Mies van der Rohe for the IU Bloomington campus. The scheme has been adapted for contemporary use by architects Thomas Phifer and Partners and is expected to open in the Fall of 2021.

When completed, the Mies Building will be a 60-foot-wide, 140-foot-long rectangular structure of thin, white-painted steel and expansive glass with 10-square-foot panes. Floor-to-ceiling windows will wrap around the entire second story, which will feature a central exterior square atrium to enhance the building’s aura of transparency. Much of the lower level is external, with the main second story elevated above the ground.

Exterior view of the northwest corner of the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, a Mies van der Rohe Design, on the campus of Indiana University Bloomington. ...

Take a look at the Chipperfield-refurbished Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin

2021-05-27T17:29:00-04:00

Nearly a decade after being appointed to refurbish one of Modernism's most iconic buildings, the team of architect David Chipperfield wrapped up construction on the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

In a recent virtual ceremony, the keys were handed over to the clients — Berlin State Museums and Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation — and the building is being readied now to re-open to the public in August with an exhibition of Alexander Calder sculptures.

The gallery, which first opened in 1968, is the only building designed by German-born architect and former Bauhaus director Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Europe after his emigration to the United States in 1937.

"The existing building fabric has been refurbished and upgraded to current technical standards with a minimum of visual compromise to the building’s original appearance," notes a statement from David Chipperfield Architects. "The functional and technical upgrades include air-conditioning, artificia...

Dieter Rams’ Wandanlage hi-fi audio wall unit is reimagined in collaboration between Virgil Abloh and Braun

2021-03-18T15:19:00-04:00

In celebration of its 100th anniversary, German consumer products company, Braun, has teamed up with Chief Creative Officer and founder of Off-White and artistic director of Louis Vuitton Menswear, Virgil Abloh, to reimagine one of the brand’s most iconic products.

Dieter Rams' classic Wandanlage hi-fi audio wall unit has been reimagined by Virgil Abloh. All Images courtesy of Braun.

This unique collaboration sees the infusion of Abloh’s personal influences and design language into the classic 1965 Wandanlage hi-fi audio wall unit, originally designed by German industrial designer, Dieter Rams. Transformed into a piece of “functional art”, the Wandanlage has been transported into 2021 with an updated polished chrome finish. This new, lustrous coating reflects the parallel between Braun’s polished chrome design aesthetic and the style of Abloh’s cultural and music references of the past 100 years.

Dieter Rams' classic Wandanlage hi-fi audio wall unit has been reimagined by Virgil Ab...

Modernizing a modernist icon: Neue Nationalgalerie to reopen next summer after Chipperfield-led renovation

2020-11-04T13:46:00-05:00

The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is set to reopen in the summer of 2021, more than six years after it closed for renovation, with an exhibition of the American sculptor Alexander Calder in the temple-like steel-and-glass upper level of the building. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and first opened in 1968, the museum is undergoing a €100m modernisation and refurbishment by the Berlin-based British architect David Chipperfield [...].

Reflecting on the significance, and also quirks, of Mies van der Rohe's 1967 New National Gallery, the architect of the ambitious renovation project, David Chipperfield, told the New York Times in a 2017 interview: "Mies took architecture to its extreme. And as a result, the building has some… let’s not call them flaws — it has some challenges, which we’ve had to address."

Documentary looks at the Mecanoo-led modernization of the Mies-designed Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington D.C.

2020-10-26T12:50:00-04:00

Originally opened in 1972, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library was Mies van der Rohe's only library and his last building. The landmark was closed in 2017 to commence modernizations which have been completed this year, recently reopening the building last month.

The three-year design and modernization project was led by Mecanoo and OTJ Architects. A full-length documentary has been released investigated the design process and transformation of the library. Check it out below:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe launches 2nd Lilly Reich Grant for Equality In Architecture

2020-06-17T12:15:00-04:00

Marking the 135th anniversary of the birth of German designer Lily Reich, Fundació Mies van der Rohe presents its 2nd edition of the Lily Reich Grant for Equality In Architecture. Reich was Mies van der Rohe's close collaborator for many years and was a key player in the conception and execution of the Barcelona Pavilion and other projects. However, her legacy has historically been forgotten, overshadowed, and even non-existent.

This grant aims to promote the study of contributions to architecture that have been forgotten or suppressed as a result of discrimination. The grant also seeks to promote equal access to the practice of architecture as a whole.

This year's grant also includes a section for senior high school student research project centered around the same theme of equality and inclusivity. "We are thrilled to present the new call of the Lilly Reich Grant for equality in architecture, and we are especially happy to include the teenage community in this fight for equality t...

Designer Sabine Marcelis channels Mies van der Rohe's use of glass as inspiration for her exhibition in Barcelona

2020-01-06T12:30:00-05:00

Rotterdam-based designer Sabine Marcelis creates a visually mesmerizing exhibition playing with glass and its material capabilities in No Fear of Glass. Currently exhibited at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, Sabine sought to create pieces in response to a request made to Mies during the construction of his 1929 German Pavilion.

No Fear of Glass. Image © Jose Hevia

According to a press statement from the exhibition, Mies was asked to "not use too much glass." For this special exhibition, Marcelis uses the material in ways that push its materiality and structural composition. Marcelis creates two large, curved, chaise, glass lounge pieces with tints of vibrantly fading color. A single glass sheet is inserted into solid travertine pieces that support the glass in place. In addition to the lounge pieces, the pavilion is filled with chrome columns, a mirrored-glass column, and a curved glass fountain loc...

Mies van der Rohe's life has been turned into a graphic novel

2019-09-10T14:15:00-04:00

Agustín Ferrer Casas, a Spanish illustrator and writer began working on the graphic novel in 2015, in an endeavor to tell the story of Mies' life and career. Now in 2019, the book is ready for release.

Image by Agustín Ferrer Casas

Casas did his homework for the 4-year project, working from a robust body of material. "It is a fictional biography of his life, based on numerous writings by many other authors and Mies himself," he says in a blog post. "And I say fiction because in this book, I try to show not only part of his work but life, the personality of the architect. What made him a great architect and what he left behind in his ambition to build."

Image by Agustín Ferrer Casas

Norman Foster has also written the prologue for the artistic work, in which he reflects on his appreciation for Mies' projects. The book can be previewed on Issuu and purchased here.

Mies as Muse

2019-07-10T19:48:00-04:00

While the work of modern masters will always lurk in the shadows of contemporary design, few have been imitated or referenced as frequently as the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. His material palette and deceptively simple methods of spatial organization indirectly inspired subsequent generations of artists and architects to treat the architect's body of work as a blank canvas onto which they can individually project their own creative identities.

Almost Nothing, by Christian Bjone. Published by Park Books.

"Out of all the architects to use as a focus and collector of artist interests," author and architect Christian Bjone writes in his newest book, "Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is a lightning rod. His work, writings, teaching, students, and personal mythology lay waiting for a response from the worshipful, visually curious, obsessive and angry."

The title of Bjone's book, Almost Nothing, is a phrase often used to describe the products of Mies' labor: the nearly complete red...

Mies' Farnsworth House to be awash in gridded lasers for this year's Chicago Architecture Biennial

2019-06-18T13:55:00-04:00

In conjunction with the upcoming Chicago Architecture Biennial, Iker Gil and Luftwerk will present their collaborative light and sound installation at Mies van Der Rohe's Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois. Titled 'Geometry of Light,' the installation will cast red lasers onto the elements of the building to emphasize its openness while tracing its underlying geometric principles. Gil and Luftwerk recently unveiled a preview of the installation:

Amazing turnout last night for our Chicagoland Art + Design Community preview of "Geometry of Light", the @_luftwerk and Iker Gil collaboration that will be co-presented by @MiesGlassHouse and @MASContext October 11-13, 2019. Tickets at https://t.co/VVVyQ92CrL #geometryoflight pic.twitter.com/mX3mjdp6Ol
— Farnsworth House (@MiesGlassHouse) June 15, 2019 Scenes from the @_luftwerk @MASContext Geometry of Light preview at the @MiesGlassHouse last weekend. Check out the real deal Oct. 11-13 pic.twitter.com/NOuxEwEGJR
— Zach Mortice (@zachmortic...

Mies van der Rohe’s Mansion House Square archive joins the RIBA Collections courtesy of Lord Palumbo

2018-10-09T13:36:00-04:00

Lord Palumbo has given Mies van der Rohe's Mansion House Square archive—which includes models, photographs, and films—to the RIBA Collections. Considered one of the most important collections of architectural materials in the world, the donation to RIBA is an important step in preserving the design records and more broadly, for "documenting the stories behind architecture," says RIBA President, Ben Derbyshire.

The seminal gift from the property developer and architecture connoisseur contains three large-scale models: one of the city of London; one of Mies van der Rohe's unrealized proposal for the Mansion House Square; and another of the building's underground shopping concourse. It also includes original feasibility drawings, bronze door handles and hinges, photomontages by architectural photographer John Donat and historical documents and objects related to the hotly-debated development.

Model of Mies van der Rohe's building for Mansion House Square. © RIBA Collections.

Despite ne...

Chicago's Lake Point Tower is turning 50

2018-09-20T18:33:00-04:00

As Lake Point Tower, once the world’s tallest all-residential high-rise, celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend, it’s an apt time to reflect on its legacy. The 70-story condominium tower, which sits just west of Navy Pier at 505 N. Lake Shore Drive, is both hero and villain, though it is more the former than the latter.

Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin looks back at the history and the significance of Lake Point Tower; as he calls it "by all accounts a spectacular and rare object — a poetic expression of curves in a city that worships the right angle."

Chicago Architecture Center opens in new location this Labor Day weekend

2018-08-30T14:25:00-04:00

The oversized skyscraper models in the window, one of them 38 feet tall, are the undisputed stars of the show, but they’re not the only reason to visit the Chicago Architecture Center, the engaging new home of the organization previously known as the Chicago Architecture Foundation. There is also the dramatically expanded Chicago Model, an expanse of mini skyscrapers and other buildings that offers a helicopterlike overview of the city’s sprawling downtown.

Previously announced back in January, the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) will now be open to the public this coming Labor Day weekend beginning Friday August 31. Formerly known as the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the CAC opens in its new location featuring everything architecture in Chicago through tours, programs, and exhibitions.

The building, originally designed by Mies van der Rohe, has been renovated with interiors by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS + GG) in partnership with museum planning and design firm Gallagher & Associates. If you're in the area be sure to check out this new addition to architecture and the city. Plan your visit with more information here.

Three famous modernist houses set the stage in this video art exhibition

2018-06-29T17:57:00-04:00

At Pioneer Works, in Brooklyn, the show “Gerard & Kelly: Clockwork” — photographs, text, installations, and live and filmed dance — references the three small structures and the intertwined careers of their architects: the Schindler House in West Hollywood, Calif., by R. M. Schindler; Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Conn.; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill.

Artists Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly's film Schindler/Glass uses three iconic modernist houses as the backdrop in which issues of gendered space and domestic intimacy are explored. The video piece is part of an ongoing series by the artists called “Modern Living". Shot on site at the Schindler House, the Glass House, and the Farnsworth House, performers interact with the complicated architectural histories in each structure.

Chicago Architecture Center announces new location opening in August 2018

2018-06-13T18:56:00-04:00

Chicago Architecture Center (CAC), formerly known as Chicago Architecture Foundation, recently announced that it will open at its new location at 111 E Wacker Dr., a building originally designed by the office of Mies van der Rohe, on August 31, 2018. The interiors have been redesigned by local firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS + GG).

Chicago Architecture Center Lobby. Image: CAF.

Chicago Architecture Center Tour Orientation Hall and Box Office. Image: CAF.

The new Center will join the active riverfront and house everything architecture for Chicagoans and tourists alike, bringing new walking tours, imaginative education programs, and new interactive exhibits. More details on the new tours will be released later this summer.

Chicago Architecture Center Lecture Hall. Image: CAF.

Chicago Architecture Center Design Studio. Image: CAF.

The CAC will feature custom-designed spaces for tour orientation, design education, public programs, along with store and exhibit space develope...

A look at visionary architect Georgia Louise Harris Brown, the first female African-American architecture graduate

2018-02-07T20:50:00-05:00

Pioneering African-American architect Georgia Louise Harris Brown had a knack for seeking out the most fertile architecture scenes in the world during her long career. She practiced in Chicago during Mies van der Rohe’s prime and, from there, moved to Brazil, where a singular modernist language was being created for Brasilia, the most ambitious planned capital of the 20th century.

Georgia Louise Harris Brown has been featured as part of Redshift's Respect series, focusing on architect visionaries. Brown was the first African-American women to graduate with an architecture degree, and the second professionally licensed African-American female architect in the nation. Beverly Loraine Greene was the first, and a role model to Brown.

She studied under Mies at his Illinois Institute of Technology and was heavily influenced by his modernist style. Her first job in Chicago was with Kenneth Roderick O'Neal, an African-American architect and structural engineer who also studied with Mies.

Working with Frank J. Kornacker Associates by 1949, Brown worked on several key projects such as 860–880 Lake Shore Drive. This high-rise was influential in its minimalist grid of steel and glass and constructed with Brown's structural calculations.

Eventually moving to Brazil, Brown became professionally licensed in 1970 leading many firms for over the next twenty years. Read mor...

Van der Home - Renovating Mies

2017-12-22T14:19:00-05:00

It’s said that there are two kinds of architects: those who will only live in vernacular homes and those who would only live in a home of their own design. Now I know why. My partner Laura and I ignored both options and bought a townhouse designed by Mies van der Rohe. With my colleagues at Dash Marshall, made limited renovations after devouring all of the books about Lafayette Park, looking for clues as to what Mies would do if given a do-over.

Bryan Boyer writes about renovating a Mies Van Der Rohe townhouse in Lafayette Park, Detroit.

"First, the original condition of these houses was not actually that nice when you got down to the small details like closet hardware, appliances, and lighting. Bathrooms and kitchens from the 1950s were not all that great, nor are we so devoted to history that we want to live with an antiquated stove just to satisfy the ghost of a dead architect.

The original Lafayette Park stove folds down like an electrified murphy bed. I applaud my dedtheiricated neighbors who have kept them up.

Second, as I spent time with Mies’ archives at MoMA I was drawn in by the numerous versions of our house that were never built. There was the plan that had two bedrooms instead of three, with the space of the final room devoted to an upstairs sitting room divided only by a curtain. Interesting."

"Mies really was a magician": David Chipperfield on the challenges of renovating the Neue Nationalgalerie

2017-09-28T14:27:00-04:00

“We’re like surgeons around a body,” said David Chipperfield as he looked at Berlin’s New National Gallery. The building, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the 20th century’s greatest architects, was almost as bare as it had been at its topping-out ceremony, in April 1967. The British architect and his lieutenant, Martin Reichert [...] surveyed the dirty steel frame and exposed concrete walls atop weed-strewn sand. “We’ve opened him up and now we’re looking at him.’”

Roughly half-way through the enormous undertaking of renovating Mies van der Rohe's 1967 masterpiece, the New National Gallery in Berlin, David Chipperfield allows us a glimpse into the structure's completely gutted belly, chats about the challenges of touching an icon, and shares some of the personal lessons he learned about the gallery's original architect.

"Mies took architecture to its extreme,” Chipperfield tells the New York Times' Gerrit Wiesmann. "And as a result, the building has some… let’s not call them flaws — it has some challenges, which we’ve had to address."

The Chicago Architecture Foundation announces the Chicago Architecture Center, to encompass both past and future design innovation

2017-09-07T17:22:00-04:00

Chicago is one of the global centers of the architectural world, not only for its rich history, but also as a stage for continuous innovation and design exploration. This lineage is a major part of why The Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) has decided to create the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC), a 20,000 square foot project replete with exhibition space, a lecture hall, custom design studios, retail space, and expansive views of the metropolitan skyline. With interiors created by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture on a site plan originally designed by Mies van der Rohe, the CAC will be the new home for the CAF.

On a river cruise, as organized by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Image: CAF

One of the coolest parts of the new interior has to be the Skyscape Gallery, which will be host to the permanent Tall Buildings and Innovation Exhibit. The exhibit will feature a 26-foot-tall "double-height" space allowing for a comprehensive investigation of tall buildings, from th...

Mies' McCormick House gets an update so that people can actually find it

2017-06-28T20:20:00-04:00

"Almost every day, a visitor will be standing in the house and will ask where the house is," said Jenny Gibbs, executive director of the Elmhurst Art Museum.

The McCormick House, located in the Chicago suburbs, was built by Mies van der Rohe in 1952 and is one of only three residences designed by the pioneering modernist architect. In 1994, the steel frame row house was moved to a nearby park where it was restored and opened to public as part of the Elmhurst Art Museum. While public access to the house has been an important success, an ongoing issue has come about from the new building that the museum added in 1997 along with the new corridors that linked the quarters to the Mies house. Basically, it masked the main facade of the house, camouflaging the prized architectural home and making many a visitor wonder where the McCormick House even was. The museum now plans to tear down the corridor, restore a carport at the house's entrance, and install trees and grass to more closely resemble the landscaping around the original house.

The Fundació Mies van der Rohe has launched a mobile app to browse nominated projects

2017-06-22T14:42:00-04:00

The Fundació Mies van der Rohe has launched an app so that anyone with a mobile phone can find on a map, and visit, the nominated works of this year's European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture. The app suggests routes for visiting the sites and even allows it's users to propose new ones. The cities of Berlin, London, Dublin, Paris and Barcelona, in addition to displaying the 2017 nominations, have also included works nominated in past editions of the award.

For Android, the app can be downloaded here.
and for iPhone, here.