Mies van der Rohe
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) must be counted among the
founders of modern architecture and design. One of the most emulated
architects of the 20th century, he was a master teacher of architecture
for nearly three decades.
Mies came to Illinois Institute of Technology to head the university's Department of Architecture soon after the closing of Bauhaus, the renowned design school that flourished in Germany from 1919 until the rise of Nazism in 1933. During his 20 years as chairman of the department (1938-58), he established a curriculum based on the Bauhaus philosophy of synthesizing aesthetics and technology. His emphasis on a strong grounding in the fundamentals of architecture and on a disciplined method of problem solving is reflected in IIT's curriculum today.
Throughout his distinguished career, Mies influenced countless architects and they in turn made his theories into a movement. His own designs -- ranging from the Barcelona Pavilion in Spain to the Seagram Building in New York to IIT's S.R. Crown Hall -- changed the skylines of cities throughout the world. Crown Hall, depicted on the commemorative stamp, was erected in 1955 and was considered by Mies to be one of his greatest architectural achievements. To provide for a flexible, columnless interior, Mies suspended the roof from four steel girders supported by eight external columns spaced 60 feet apart. The home of IIT's College of Architecture, Planning, and Design, Crown Hall has been described as an "immortal contribution to the architecture of Chicago and the world."
The master plan of the IIT campus, designed by Mies in 1941, was one of the largest projects he ever conceived and the only one to come so close to achieving complete realization. The campus encompasses 20 of his buildings, the greatest concentration of Mies-designed buildings in the world. Thanks to the first chairman of its architecture department, IIT's campus is considered an architectural landmark of Chicago.
In the years since most of the buildings were erected, IIT has grown into a major university. It consists of 50 buildings spanning 120 acres and is located just three miles south of the center of one of the world's great cities.
