Mies in Berlin

This in-depth look at Mies van der Rohe’s early career, published to accompany an exhibition opening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in June 2001 and traveling to Berlin and other European venues, is the first to examine the architect’s work in Europe in terms of specific historical and cultural context—rather than the more abstract and formal arguments of the International Style.

While earlier studies have described a fundamental break between Mies’s neo-classical work prior to 1919 and the more avant-garde work of the 1920s, recent research demonstrates that the transformation was much more gradual. Here 11 scholars and architectural historians explore particular aspects of Mies’s work, together shedding new light on the continual interplay of tradition and innovation, nature and abstraction, in the evolution of his design theories and methods. With a wealth of photographs and drawings, many not previously published, this book conveys for the first time the dynamic intellectual ferment of this formative period in the life of one of architecture’s towering figures.

TERRENCE RILEY is chief curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

BARRY BERGDOLL is an associate professor in the Department of Art History at Columbia University in New York City.