Architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Tradition and Modernity, Continuity and Critique
23 February 2021
Tradition and Modernity, Continuity and Critique23 February 2021
The grid has served as ‘the image of an absolute beginning’, as Rosalind Krauss affirmed in 1986 in ‘The Originality of the Avant-Garde’. [1] Although Krauss was referring to visual art, her pronouncement might be even more true for architecture. One need only look to iconic modernist examples by Le… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Architectural Apparitions
7 January 2021
Writing Prize 2020: Architectural Apparitions7 January 2021
Some dreams are never meant to see the light of day. Like a wild design that continually finds itself at the bottom of the roster, patiently waiting its turn to be a part of the city’s skyline, it either promises to burn a hole in the pocket of the investor,… Read More
Mies: The Berlin Building Expostition (1974)
25 June 2020
Mies: The Berlin Building Expostition (1974)25 June 2020
The following text is excerpted from Oppositions 2 (1974): 86–91. The Berlin Building Exposition of 1931 was the largest of its kind ever to be held. With Teutonic thoroughness every material, every method, every theory that had to do with building was shown in the Exposition. The result of this thoroughness, plus… Read More
Mies: The Horizon
14 June 2020
Mies: The Horizon14 June 2020
By Robin Evans
Perusing the slides I had taken of the reconstructed pavilion, I found it difficult to decide which way up they went — an artefact of photography, no doubt. Then I changed my mind. It was not an artefact of photography, but a property of the pavilion itself, a property of… Read More
Alternative Histories: Carmody Groarke on Haus-Rücker-Co
22 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Carmody Groarke on Haus-Rücker-Co22 February 2019
Ashtray Our interest in Haus-Rücker-Co’s drawing lies less in the technological implications that created the artificial environment and focusses instead on the spatial tension created between Mies van der Rohe’s Haus Lange and the heart-shaped bubble that surrounds it. The drawing removes reference to the context, within and outside the… Read More
Mies: The Double or Panoramic Structure of the Perspective
24 October 2016
Mies: The Double or Panoramic Structure of the Perspective24 October 2016
What is compelling about the sketches of Mies van der Rohe is their reliance on a pictorial composition that actively distorts perspectival conventions. This type of distortion is evident consistently across his more finished presentations drawings as well as his sketches. In using perspective as his main visualising tool Mies… Read More
Mies van der Rohe: Neue Stadt
22 July 2016
Mies van der Rohe: Neue Stadt22 July 2016
In the photographs most often reproduced of the Glass Skyscraper by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the tower stands in the middle of a clay model of an old city. The model acts as a presentation of an imagined reality, of what it might be when built. The beacon of… Read More
The changing metropolis 1900–1930s
26 November 2013
The changing metropolis 1900–1930s26 November 2013
By Niall Hobhouse and Nicholas Olsberg
Part II: Unifying the city landscape: 1900–1930s The area of Finsbury in north London became a borough in 1900 and proposals rapidly appeared to replace the terraces of George Dance the Younger’s Finsbury Square and Finsbury Circus with a large volume of continuous office blocks. John Belcher’s proposal seems to… Read More
Displaced persons
3 October 2012
Displaced persons3 October 2012
By Niall Hobhouse and Nicholas Olsberg
Architects are extraordinarily reluctant to incorporate into their visual descriptions of buildings any evidence that the real subject their structures serve, and around whose activities they are so carefully formulated, is people. Here’s a look at a few of the moments when this unspoken rule has been broken. DISTANCES: Using… Read More
Architectural anxiety
28 September 2011
Architectural anxiety28 September 2011
By Niall Hobhouse and Nicholas Olsberg
This instalment explores the rich pathologies of architectural anxiety: the nagging pressure of what architects know and admire, or have seen and rejected. Or of what it is in the work of other architects, and in their own past practice, which they are driven always to acknowledge in the buildings… Read More
Simplification
6 May 2011
Simplification6 May 2011
By Niall Hobhouse and Nicholas Olsberg
The first of these short excursions into work on paper looked at how drawings were used to place built forms in their settings. Grounded in traditions of illustration, they were spacious, suggestive and pictorial. Architects draw to many purposes. In Part II, on Simplification, we turn from the arts of… Read More
Parataxis
28 December 2017
Parataxis28 December 2017
By Matthew Wells
‘Whatever elements that may come to hand or that are selected from the profusion of materials within reach, are combined with words to create a simple poetic image. This should amuse, disturb, mystify or provoke reflection. These images above all should entertain – the only sure road to appreciation.’ Man… Read More
plan projection (axonometric isometric) publication in the archive (project)