Highrise Buildings Sketch, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective Sketches
<p>Mies van der Rohe realized many influential tall buildings and is widely credited with establishing a minimalist design template for rectangular towers in steel-and-glass office buildings in American cities throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Mies’ first realized towers, however, were a series of residential buildings in Chicago, the most famous of which is 860–880 Lake Shore Drive, completed in 1951. With an economy of line, this sketch for two high-rise buildings illustrates the dynamic, perpendicular relationship of the 860– 880 towers, as well as the uniform columns supporting the buildings’ volumes at ground level, creating a joined arcade and lobbies for the apartments.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1941
- Dimensions
- 15.2 × 21.7 cm (6 × 8 9/16 in.); Including board: 25.3 × 36.1 cm (10 × 14 1/4 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Artist
Drawing
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect and furniture designer whose stripped-down aesthetic defined modernism in the twentieth century. He pioneered the steel-frame glass building and the open-plan interior, reducing architectural form to its essential structural elements. His Barcelona Chair and Brno Chair became canonical pieces of twentieth-century design, their tubular steel frames and leather surfaces exemplifying his dictum 'less is more.' After emigrating to the United States in 1938, he directed the Illinois Institute of Technology and designed the Farnsworth House and the Seagram Building in New York. His influence on post-war architecture and industrial design remains foundational.
Full artist profile →More
More by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
King Broadcasting Company Office Building Project, Seattle, WA, Site utlilization study, phase II.
1969 · Photostat with pencil on acetate
King Broadcasting Company Office Building Project, Seattle, WA, Preliminary site development plan
1968 · Photostat with pencil on acetate
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C., First floor plan
1965 · Pencil and ink on illustration board
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. (Second floor plan)
1965 · Pencil and ink on illustration board
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C., First floor plan
1965 · Pencil, colored pencil, and ink on acetate
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. (Third floor plan)
1965 · Pencil and ink on illustration board
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- Year
- 1941
- Dimensions
- 15.2 × 21.7 cm (6 × 8 9/16 in.); Including board: 25.3 × 36.1 cm (10 × 14 1/4 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1941-038857
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified