Before starting my essay on Master Mies van der Rohe, I would like to .
appreciate this opportunity to view great exhibitions comprising his most of works. The most interesting thing for me was I could watch fine sets of Mies miniatures. While the photographers who participated in these exhibitions lighted his works on innovative terms, the real models looked much more realistic and inspirational for my eyes. By the way, seeing his works according to chronology as they set up at the museums, I found out that the two exhibitions of Mies van Der Rohe at the Moma and the Whitney demonstrates with a clarity the evolvement of Mies. It gave us the chance to review the style through his life and the apparent continuity of the modern movement before and after his emigration into the U.S.A at the same time. With this reason, my focus will be on how his works evolved from regional to universal style and where his persistent concern about steel- and- glass vocabulary was found both in Berlin and in America. .
It is obvious from a first glance that Mies developed a design approach .
based on historicism at his early stage. His first commissioned work, .
the Riehl house (1906) but some works after entering the studio of Peter Berens in 1908 concede some influence from Prussian Classicism, which I found it very friendly. Even after producing the Friedrichstrasse skyscraper plan (1921) and the Barcelona Pavilion (1929), his style shown in the Wolf house and the Gericke house was not really liberated from the regional influence in spite of its simplistic and functional structure. On the other hand, the gorgeous skyscrapers like the Lake Shore Drive Apartment complex (1953) and the Seagram Building (1954) reveal the idea of a universal and simplified architecture and neutral spaces based on material honesty. The modern materials like glass and bronze made the Seagram building look sophisticated and urban, which are the characteristics of the International style in American architecture.
