Mies van der Rohe and Oscar Niemeyer - Structural Grid Versus White Research Paper

Mies van der Rohe and Oscar Niemeyer - Structural Grid Versus White Architecture Sculptures - Research Paper Example He became a master stonemason at nineteen years. He worked at the art nouveau architect and furniture design that belonged to Bruno Paul. He received the first commission to design a house belonging to a philosopher when he was twenty years. He started working for Peter Behrens in 1908. He studied architecture of Karl Friedrich Schikel and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1912 Mies opened his own office in Berlin. He studied skyscraper and designed two glass towers made of steel-frames for a competition. This foreshadowed his skyscraper designs of the 1940s and 1950s (Wintle, 2002, p 32). Ludwig van der rohe actively participated in several avant-garde groups like ‘Zehner ring’ and the Novembergruppe that championed modern art and architecture. He contributed to major architectural philosophies of the 1920s when he was the artist director of the Weissenhoff project. This was a model housing colony in Stuttgart where he managed to design a block together with other leading European architects of the time. In 1927, Mies designed the German pavilion in Barcelona which became his most famous buildings. The Barcelona pavilion hall was flat roofed with walls made of marble and glass and could be moved around. This brought the first concept of fluid space. Mies met Philip Johnson, a New York architect who championed him to architectural fame in the United States. Philip included some of Mies projects in the MoMas first architectural exhibition in 1932. He became the director of the Bauhaus School between 1930 and 1933 and then relocated to the States in 1937. He headed the department of architecture at the Armour institute of Technology in Chicago, (now Illinois Institute of technology). He designed a new campus for the school using refined steel and glass style (Thomas, 2010). After becoming an American citizen, Mies designed the Farnsworth house. The house was transparent and supported by eight steel columns. The interior consisted of a single room subdivided by partitions of glass. He developed the convention hall in 1953 and later the twin towers in Chicago. The twin towers skyscrapers were a realization of his dream of building skyscrapers using glass and steel. He built other high-rises in New York Detroit, Toronto and Chicago. However the Seagram building in New York was voted as the work of genius in skyscraper design. He achieved the ‘Order pour le Merite’ from Germany in 1959. He was acknowledged with the â€Å"Presidential Medal of Freedom† by the US government. He was invited to Berlin to design the New National gallery. This building was the culmination of his life-long vision of an exposed structure connecting the interior to the landscape. It was also his last design before his death on the 17th August, 1969. Traditionalism to Modernism Before World War I, Mies was a traditionalist who designed traditional custom homes. However, the traditional styles were already under heavy criticism from the progressive t heorist. According to these opponents traditional architecture was first and foremost non-progressive. The emerging technology of the modern time demanded its presence in the lives and architecture. However, traditional architecture was blamed for hiding the modern construction under the shallow