German Pioneer of Modern Design: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Oct. 28, 2009 - PRLog -- Germany is host to some of the greatest minds in the arts, but in the field of design no other man is held with high esteem as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. A native of the city of Aachen in western Germany, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is credited as one of the major pioneers of modern design movement in the early 20th century. His work put modernism in architecture and furniture design into the mainstream and remains a benchmark to modern designs made up to this day.

Born Maria Ludwig Mies on March 1886, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe started out as a youth helping in his father's stone-cutting trade and working in local design firms.  In 1908, Mies (as he was often called by his associates) was apprenticed to the renowned Berlin architect Peter Behrens. Mies van der Rohe worked under Behrens until 1912, and gradually established himself as an independent architect.

Like most of his contemporaries post-World War I, Mies van der Rohe wanted to establish a new architectural style that would exemplify the post-war “modern age” in the same manner as Gothic and Classical architecture did for their own time, Mies' ideas eventually contributed to modern architecture, a style characterized for their light, minimalist structure as well as frequent use of industrial materials like steel and glass. Some of the buildings Mies van der Rohe designed, like the Lafayette Park in Detroit, Michigan and the Berlin Neue Nationalgalarie museum, still exist today.

Aside from his work in architecture Mies van der Rohe is also a talented furniture designer. A man with an eye for detail, Mies made furnishings to complement the interiors of the buildings he designed. His furniture designs were notable for incorporating the minimalist qualities of modern architecture and the uses of both traditional and modern materials like fabric and chrome-plated steel. Two famous examples of Mies' furniture designs are the Barcelona Chair of the German Pavilion in Spain and the Brno Chair of the Villa Tugendhat in the Czech Republic.

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