The Simple Idea by Mies van der Rohe that Changed Chicago
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In Chicago, black or silver colored towers designed by Mies van der Rohe are sprinkled across the city from the north to the south. They all sprang up within a relatively short period of time and constitute - in combination with some faithful homages - what’s called the Second Chicago School of Architecture. This timeline makes it seem like Mies' strategies sprang out of nowhere and like they were born already fully developed. This video takes a look at how these tower strategies evolved from smaller projects to larger ones by paying special attention to their section. Whereas open plans promise ultimate fluidity, in section, Mies' buildings present another idea entirely. In this direction, difference and discretion dominate and symmetry rules. All of this is in service of developing a close connection between the occupant and the distant horizon.
_Chapters_
00:00 Introduction
01:16 Altas VPN Sponsorship
02:20 Farnsworth House
02:52 Friedrichstrasse Tower Competition
05:09 Barcelona Pavilion
08:21 Tugendaht House
09:43 Crown Hall
11:12 860 - 880 Lakeshore Drive
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_About the Channel_
Architecture with Stewart is a TH-cam journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
_About Me_
Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
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University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: arch.uic.edu/
Howdy ya'll. A little early video this week in time for Thanksgiving. Click my link atlasv.pn/Stewart and get an early access to Black Friday deal for Atlas VPN with 86% OFF and 3 months for free.
Tugendhat House _ Mies van der Rohe pls do some video's regarding this modernist house and it will give an immense insight on his last design of Mies thank you
Hi Stewart, this is a suggestion for a video I'd love to see. I'd love to hear your opinion about how you think Mies van der Rohe influenced Virgil Abloh's designs over the years, since his days as an architecture student.
Thanks for making great content!
I'll be a little nit-picky, sorry: there is a typo in "Tugendhat" and Czechia (the new-ish short name of the Czech Republic) is pronounced with a "k" sound in the middle. I wonder if maybe some of the viewers might think that Mies had built a house in Chechnya... Anyway, this is a great episode, I just couldn't help myself!
@ good point. I heard Chechnya and wondered at him taking a commission from so far east.
Hello. Great video but I would like to correct you. You say the Tugendaht House is in Chechnya which is a really different country from The Czech Republic, where the house is.
Very different countries and very very different political and social views.
For 5 years, I lived in a van De Rohe building in Newark, NJ. The 1950's Colonade. Constrction was his "frame and glass" that you describe in the video. Some good and not so good things. From the 13th floor (he was European after all) had a view of the NYC skyline from the GW to the Verrazano bridges. The ceilings were 8.5 ft. The extra 6 inches gave the impression of a much larger and more open space than actually existed. Window were almost but not quite floor to ceiling. The kitchen was German Utilitarian with white enamel steel cabinets. One bedroom; one bathroom and a perfect place for one person living alone. But......
As the sun rose, so did the temperature in the apartment. It frequently seriously exceeded the outside temperature. The tech of the 1950's, from the glass to the heating to the air-conditioning ws not up to the task of either heating or cooling. My son, who was a student of architecture at NJIT, constantly berated me about the historical significance of the building, much to his satisfaction and to my enlightenment. A few years later, we had a chance to make a crusade to Barcelona to see the Pavilion that you discussed. It was breath taking. thanks for the Louis Sullivan Quote. I still have a copy of Kindergarten Tales on my shelf
Wow - I lived in the Colonade around 1968-69 while studying at Newark College of Engineering ( later became NJIT ).
Newark?
Are you black??
@@stuartlee6622 wtf are u talking about
He is actually Jewish and appended Van Der Rohe himself, which gave the impression to me at least that is he ethnically Dutch, which he is not.
In every example Stuart gave in the video, that's what I was thinking: how the hell do you insulate that? There is no envelope outside of the structure, in fact the steel columns are attached outside of the window panes to the slabs... It all looks cool but you cannot insulate it properly, and as such it probably uses vasts amount of energy to heat and cool.
The blue trash bin really adds to the overall aesthetic of the towers, it really grounds the structure while adding a dash of color.
On 2018 I went on a class/college trip to Chicago and we visited the 860-880 towers. While we were there, a lovely lady asked if we were architecture students and if there was a professor with us. Long story short, she chatted with our professor and with us and then let us have a tour of the building and her own apartment. It's one thing to study and read about the building to seeing it then and there from inside. Such a lovely experience and one that I will never forget. Personal goal is to live there someday
comes for the architecture stays for the moustache
Dat 'stache
Ned Flanders but better
She's not satisfied🎼She wants a man with a moustache🎼
I used to love mustaches but hipsters ruin everything.
A moustache is a sign of a deeply troubled past. Avoid!
My grandparents owned one of the Mies van der Rohe town-homes in Detroit. It was "typical" of his designs in that it had floor to ceiling glass walls and exposed steel I beam construction. It had an efficiency galley kitchen with metal cabinets. The stove burners folded up when not in use to create more counter space. Trash cans were located in a utility tunnel under the town homes so that they were never visible in the environment. All the utilities were also deliver underground so that there were no unsightly telephone poles in the development.
The one thing that these town-homes were not and most of his designs are not is energy efficient. It cost a small fortune to keep the place warm in the winter. You can forget cool in the summer. While I admire their appearance and many innovations, I'm not so sure I would want to live there.
Yep, architects going for "the look" and leaving the users to adapt.
@@glorgau Give your comment let me expand a bit on the experience of living the those town homes. The fact that the utilities and trash were hidden from the neighborhood made this a very pleasant place to live. Unlike so many "planned" communities today these home truly did form a community. My grand parents purchase that home new and lived their until their deaths. Nearly 50 years. Yes, the summers could be unpleasant but the many virtues of the place made up for it. Mies was a product of his time. He optimized these building for space efficacy. While all his buildings have a distinctive style I would not say the he designed so much for appearance. He lived in a time where electricity was going to be too cheap to meter. I wonder what he would do now. Now that energy efficiency is also a priority.
Before even getting to your second paragraph I was already shuddering.
I'd say 90% of Aussies don't know how to heat or cool their homes efficiently. The only technique they comprehend is shutting the door.
If we let the average person actually design their own homes we'd be burning twice the coal
Well the time was another then. Architects didnt care much about enviromental issues back then.
Laminated glass makes these designs very practically achievable, I think.
It's interesting to note that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's own home in Chicago was located in a Pre-War building on Pearson St, across from what is now the Museum of Contemporary Art. Though his architecture was stripped of any ornamentation, he lived in an apartment building with traditional design.
Many architects move to a classical building as soon as they can afford it. I know an architect who designed horrible minimalist buildings in the 1970s but moved to a 17th century building after he got paid for that project. Then he stripped that old building from its original details. It shows how twisted the mind of many modern architects is.
@@pietervoogt What architect?
Kinda like not even they want to live there.
@@pietervoogt twisted? Man its just tastes. Why do you use strong words? LOL its just buildings. I can say it because Im an architect. Dont put on a pedestal architecture.
@@Galbex21 its not "just" buildings. Architecture shapes the public realm like almost nothing else. It's not a piece of art that nobody else has to look at, it is very public. So when modernist architects abuse their position to create horrible anti-human designs, everyone suffers from it.
I appreciate the Tugendaht house prioritizing occupant experience over some arbitrary curb appeal, I wish we applied this more. The living room is a very private space, where friends and family gather to converse and celebrate. I feel burdened by large, street-facing windows in my living room. I want to be able to invite nature into my living room without the burden of also letting every neighbor and passerby look into my home as well.
I prefer them looking into my living room over looking in my bedroom though.
Apart from that, I strongly disagree about your framing of the relationship between a house and the street it is facing. A street where the buildings completely shut out the street is unpleasant. 'Unheimisch' as Van der Rohe should understand. Streets would feel and be less safe without eyes on the street, and neighbors will have less social contact, if they are not able to do a mundane thing as waving to their neighbors as they pass by the house every now and then.
I would always prefer to have a kitchen near the street, where you do some tasks which are ok to be seen by the public like cooking and cleaning, a living room which would be a bit further away for instance at back of the house, but which still show some live with flickering lights or silhouettes, and then the really private spaces like bedrooms on another level and preferably at the back of a house.
@@wernerrietveld Totally agree. These massive towers are dehumanizing and do real damage to the urban fabric - both by presenting themselves as a 'void' to the street, as well as by essentially being what Leon Krier refers to a 'vertical cul-de-sacs' which overburden the infrastructure and necessitate very wide roads. To me they belong in the dustbin. Give me 5 story contiguous urbanism anyday over 40 stories and a parking lot - in fact you probably get a higher density and better urbanism with more human-scaled architecture. But this problem is endemic to the way we build currently in the US - single family homes and skyscrapers are about our only two choices. Missing Middle would tend to agree I suspect.
@@kylejmarsh3988 I was actually referencing The Chinese Chili's remarks on Tugenthat, but they apply at the towers as well to some extend.
I am actually a fan of towers. But they always should be placed on a base with day-round human visited functions to be of any value beyond a nice skyline. There are many great examples, and a large number of failures too.
@Werner Rietveld
Agree. I view the idea of that house as a anti living space. By putting the living room, the room of invitation of the outsider, in the most intimate area and place the most intimate rooms at the area of invitation, at the front door, seems to me to be just revolutionare for the sake of being revolutionary. I persume he was a futurist. Looking at humanity as a theorem that has its own mathematical formula, that only needs to be reformulated.
I consider architecture like this as inhumane and dogmatic.
@@danthefrst While I find futurist architecture very interesting, especially once it becomes so grand and abstract that it becomes hostile, it's not really what I had in mind with that comment. I'm more of a modern Norwegian cabin type of guy. I enjoy privacy and a view. The Tugendaht house was placed on a very unique topography that had an amazing few from one side. Why not ensure that every living space has direct and unfettered access to the view, while maintaining high levels of privacy? The house just hits a spot with me, which is glass walls without the anxiety of knowing all my neighbors can see into every nook and cranny of my house. That, plus a beautiful view.
0:30 wow. what the hell. The whole shoreline is one huge soulless motorway. Why would any city want to ruin the best view of their city like that. After I read about America's crazy car centered cities I've started to pay attention to them, but seeing it like this still makes me absolutely baffled. Greetings from Oulu, Finland.
It's not the whole shoreline, but the shoreline in the CBD for sure yea
If your bafflement requires further stimulation, read Robert Hughes’ The Shock Of The New. Did it for me.
I'm a Historic Preservation Master's student, but I don't have a background in architecture. Your videos have been an invaluable resource for me and have helped to fill a lot of gaps in my architectural knowledge. Thank you for doing what you do!
I’m so happy they’re helpful!!
Same for me, as a student of urban planning
this Chicago native (who left there for school in the 1960's) is still in love with my city and visits as often as possible. i'm so happy to have found your pages, just to be able to see views of my hometown and celebrate how lovely it continues to grow. One of my great grandfathers was a construction superintendent at the '93 Columbian Exposition .
I realize these designs were turning points in the evolution of modern architecture. So I understand how other architects would geek-out about them. But to non-architects and especially to artists/creatives, MvdR - and most of his mid-century peers - reduced our cityscapes to rows of undecorated rectangles. Imagine, for instance, if dancers restricted their movements to a sequence of perfectly vertical and then perfectly horizontal gestures - with no intermediate angles or curved sweeps in between. :^/
He's the Devo of architecture.
@Gavin B. Ha, interesting how you put it. :^) I'm sure the reasons behind the mid-century stark-rectangle worship have been analyzed, criticized, and justified, ad nauseaum. But informally, it does seem to me to be a culmination of societal trends that started with 'The Age of Reason', 2 centuries previous. It's Scientific Materialism taken to its esthetic extreme. For a few decades it was actually cutting edge _cool_ to not spend 1¢ on embellishing architecture with anything inessential to function. And function was epitomized by the 90° right angle. Imho, also connected to Behaviourism in psychology: All behaviours/choices must only serve a practical result, or be rejected as unworthy emotionalism. And yes, most of today's factories & warehouses follow exactly the same ethos.
Couldn't agree more. This structure (and all the others like it) is a cretinous worship to the incredibly dire idyll that the individual is meaningless.
@@chuckschillingvideos couldn't agree more 👍 has a very Soviet era gray totalitarian life is meaningless feel
My parents lived in a corner condo on the 22nd floor of 880 with a view of the lake. The glass windows ran from floor to ceiling giving you an amazing expansive view. We loved visiting despite the cartoonishly small bathroom. The elevators were small and when my parents moved out I had to get the maintenance people to bring the top of the elevator to floor level so that a large armoire could be placed on top of the elevator. When I got the armoire in place, which wasn't easy because of the cables in the center, the maintenance guy told me to hold on tight. What? No one told me that I'd be the one riding down on top of the elevator. Pretty sure there were some liability issues that maintenance guy was ignoring. Anyway, thirty years ago I remember talking about how well the design held up or how ahead of his time Mies was and I think the timeless simplicity still holds up.
How did the armoire get into the apartment in the first place?
Better than the video! Could have saved me a lot of time. Thanks.
Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. It's like analysing Bach or the Beatles or Black Sabbath, you can understand all the thinking and design elements, but you can never go back in time and experience what it was like when it was first created, before it became commonplace or obvious. This is a great channle, I hope you can do the Miller house one of these days. One of personal favourites. 👍🇦🇺
Hello Stewart! As a former docent w/t Chicago Architecture Foundation for 10 years (now the Chicago Architecture Center), I'm so happy to find your channel. Thank you for adding another dimension of knowledge about Mies and his great contributions to Chicago architecture. I'm excited to see more.
"Mies!" So you don't accept him as a pseudo-Dutchman?
Nice video. One small thing, Czechia is pronounced differently. The first part is soft as you said, but the second is hard k. It is more like Czekia.
Interesting. Thank you!
right, chechnya is nowhere near the czech republic, i was kinda thrown off by that :)
@@stewarthicks also, it’s Tugendhat, not Tugendaht or whatever, it’s even written on the included sketches, these little things put me off from finishing the video…
@@jurajkusy jeez lol
Plus it was Czechoslovakia by then.
I had a moment of almost primal recognition when I saw the Lakeview Towers. I had passed their cousins in Montreal--Westmount Square--countless times from walking to Plaza Alexis Nihon or when I attended the CEGEP just north of the block it stands on.
I have absolutely no interest, generally speaking, in architecture. But this is video #4 and I'm looking for another. Intelligent people talking about the things they know and are passionate about is never not fascinating.
Maybe you know without knowing that architecture is in everything
So your interest is drawn to what is your worthwhile.
Here in Montréal, *Westmount Square* are Mies van der Rohe mixed use buildings - two towers are residential and the other is office. A podium building and plinth tie the towers together. Visually, they're nearly identical to the Lakeshore buildings Stewart featured here in this video.
Westmount Square has always been one of my favourite buildings here in Montréal.
Thank you, Stewart for the background information and design intents of Mies van der Rohe.
I loved looking at these building everytime I would run/bike past it by the lakeshore. It was always a tossup as to what I like more: the sleek black ones to the north, or the more colorful bluish ones to the south. Either way, they are all amazing!
I studied Mies' towers while in school, the corner details for the Seagram building were a mind altering experience for me!
8:25 - The Tugendaht House is in Brno, Czech republic (your pronunciation sounds like Chechnya, so hope you were saying Czechia)
As an engineer, a lot of the considerations you make in this video are relatively foreign to me, but very interesting nonetheless. Your perspective on mundane design choices is profound, and I wouldn't have considered anything you brought up in this video without this guided tour of the architect's mind.
Thank you for sharing the first two buildings 860 and 880. I have loved seeing these two buildings for more than 35 years driving with friends on Lake Shore Drive. I always look over at them and see beauty every single time!!!! I have always had friends up on the north side who would drive back north after picking me up from the "IC" train station at Randolph for me since I lived in Hyde Park. But so, when I decided to move up north, I was like wait a minute I can't see those two beautiful building anymore!!! I do miss see them since I still don't have a car. Oh well, these days I live very close in the Edgewater neighborhood to another glass and street building of 5415 North Sheridan. You are so right Mies Von De Rohe is so "Chicago"!!!!!!
7:25 Fun fact: Book matched patterns are heavily used in veneering furniture, as it makes it easy for the eyes to look at (when done properly) and gives the impression that it's made of solid wood, rather than veneered chipboard or MDF. I'm currently on my way to become a cabinet maker by profession and we use the book matched patterns to give off the looks mentioned above.
Absolutely excellent video btw and I gotta look more into Mies van der Rohe. For most of my young life (I'm 26) I've loved architecture, but over the past 5 years I've transitioned more and more towards furniture and the designs of Mies van der Rohe here, really shows how furniture design and architectural design can work in a beautiful tandem where none is relying on the others design to look good. This is what should be desired. Not another IKEA home, but this.
Thank you so much for your insights. As you make crystal clear, Mies was a master of proportion and perspective with sparingly deployed delights like the evocative stone wall in the pavilion. Later stylistic copiers can’t match his tension and balance. You popping up from the bottom of the screen added a nice comedic element 🤓.
All very nice. The original looks great...but then it became an intellectual excuse to cost cut on decorative elements on the exterior of a building. After Mies van der Rohe, all the modern skyscrapers had a justification for being boring, impersonal and even a bit threatening. Kinda like modern corporations.
Personally, I like Art Deco. The 30th Street Railroad station in Philadelphia still looks great after almost 100 years. It's grand and soaring but still has a style that makes you enjoy being in the space. You look around while you're waiting for your train and see all the elegant design details. You feel comfortable and welcome, even though it's a very large space.
Stewart, while I live in Chicago just across the street from UIC's Cuppa Hall and the BFA/MFA building, I'm currently here in NJ visiting my parents and had the great good fortune to visit Saarinen's Bell Labs building in Holmdel, NJ. So many of the themes you discussed in this video are plainly on view in this incredible work: the plinth, the glass curtain skin, the emphasis on horizontals. Perhaps you might want to consider an episode on adaptive re-use focusing on this building and a sister complex in Hoffman Estates. I wish I could share a couple of the photos I took. Still, they barely convey the monumentality and beauty of this enormous piece of architecture. I've been fortunate to visit the Miller House in Columbus, IN. and so the conversation pits Saarinen incorporated into this commercial space were immediately recognizable. Honestly, the Bell Labs complex was probably one of the single most beautifully executed spaces I've every seen. He even was able to incorporate Joseph Albers textiles into the original plan. Stunning.
I'm not an architect student but I'll say Mies van der Rohe is my favorite architect. IIT's campus is beautiful.
Highly detailed analysis. This really makes me wonder if architects typically are thinking this way in such detail about what they want to sketch and then sketch or if these details about their designs are more intuitive and they just sketch what comes to mind ...
Like a vaguely worded song, admirers and critics alike read a lot more into the work than was probably envisioned. _In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Syndrome_
They come in all flavors.
Thank you, Stewart! I'm an almost graduated Architecture/Urbanism student from Rio de Janeiro. For me your videos are wonderful classes full of contents that help us to expand our architectural knowledge, your analysis are inspiring and enlightening. Cheers from Brazil.
I stayed at a horrible hotel nearby the 860/880 Lakeshore Drive towers but they were the anchor point for our joy while we were there. Much of the joy of being in that part of Chicago was unknown to us at the time, there was an implied, underlining structure and plan that you've just brought to light. Great vid.
Liked. Subscribed. And did the notification bell thing.
Great video, this reminds me of the kind of analysis I used to do back in archi school. Mies' buildings always looked so plain to me, until one day during architecture history class, a class mate voiced the exact same opinion. The professor said it may look boring and simple to us today, but if Mies (and other early modern architects) hadn't tried challenging the norm, all of our buildings today would look radically different. They took very bold stances that changed architecture forever. I've had a profound appreciation of their work ever since.
I like to draw the parallell to filmmaking. I encountered the view that Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" was "boring and formulaistic, just like any other blockbuster." Well, now it is? But that's just because there have been so many blockbusters inspired by it? It more or less invented the template for the James Bond franchise, every Bond can thank Hitchcock for that format. It is only because of all the crap it doesn't stand out more in film history. And the same goes for Mies van der Rohe, I think....
Why is change for change's sake something to appreciate? Mies, Corbusier, Wright et al destroyed the millenia old and Always adapting classical architecture in favour of plain boxes that have no appreciation for culture, history or even just the human scale. They are the reason why most modern cities are so ugly and dehumanizing compared to the cities of old. We definitely need to stop idolizing these People, who have made our places of living so much lsse liveable.
@@MTobias 😱
@@MTobias Except for the very fact that as pointed out by the video and many others, these buildings do very much take in the human element, prioritizing ideas such as light and visibility. I can also just very much retort your point by saying that many old pieces of classical architecture were too excessive, lacking any connection to the people, and only serving the upper class that inhabits them. And as much as it would be easy to frame Mies and his peers as the inspirations for the current wave of drab housing, the reality is most of these buildings are designed and commissioned by multi-millionaires and billionaires with no regards towards taste and only focused on packing as many people as possible. I guess the point here I'm trying to make is change can be good, if we're too stuck in our own ways ultimately life can not progress for the better.
@@currentlyquang I'm sorry but this is simply not true. During most of human history and especially during the industrial era, ornament was very democratic and even houses for the poor and workking class had some decoration.
The glass facades of these buildings is very unsuited for human habitation, as people need privacy, places to put things on walls and don't to get baked during the summer. There is a reason why nowadays curtain glass is mostly used for office buildings instead of residential.
Your defense of modernist architects unfortunately fails completely. It doesn't matter what kind of building t is and what kind of budge t it has, modernist buildings manage to look soulless and depressing just the same. Government office? Corporate hadquarter? Non-profit housing? Expensive condos? Doesn't matter, it all looks worse than very standard housing in the late 19th century aesthetically.
I'm not some kind of "it was always better back in the day" kind of guy. However buildings are long term structures that need to last a long time. Therefore it is important we stick to what we know works. Classical architecture looked good 2000 years ago and will still look good in another 2000 years. All the modern trendy architecture will look like garbage once tha fashion has worn off in a couple of decades or even just years. This is especially irresponsible nowadays, where we have to make everything sustainable, which modern architecture is just not.
This is your best video yet. Thanks. You 've given a clear progression from small to large scale design by Van der Rohe which I didn't know. Also the Tugendaht house is new to me. I thought I'd seen all of his work.
Wow, keep up the good work. I personally live in a condo with wall of widows in the living room.. your description is accurate, I live at the 10th floor with a mix of view of city forest, road and a mountain.. to me, that was a selling point. I never get bored to observe the change of the seasons.
There is a similarity between Mie’s pavilions and traditional Japanese architecture - the importance of the floor plan and roof plane, the transparency of the walls and the floating quality of the floor.
I really like you discription of the atmospherics of the Mies glass towers, it is like living in a large open tent but without the inconviences that weather brings, dry not wet and warm and not cold. I think this effect neutralizes the slick brutalism effect of his style however I think his reach exceeded his grasp because the earlier building materials were marginal at best. The basic Mies Box was designed to be cost effective and durable even if the exterior was not. I have been to Barcelona and truely found the architectural experience rewarding.
There are a cluster of buildings in Montreal, QC (Westmount) that look identical to these. And in fact after googling, Westmount Square was indeed designed by your boy! Cool to see the ideas behind it.
Yep, he did Westmount Square, and the TD Towers in Toronto as well.
He was a friend of Sadie Bronfman
And they did all the city centres together
A very nice analysis bringing together Mies’ major projects (both built and unbuilt) to reveal his big ideas as well as how they compare. Impressive production (and geez, this must have taken so much time to film and edit).
I'm a student at IIT (where Crown Hall is), and the shop has since been moved from the basement of Crown Hall and has since be relocated to a nearby building. The library in the basement was effectively doubled in size with this move, as well.
So, it's only natural that you do a follow-up piece ... from Toronto. The Mies van der Rohe towers ensemble define the downtown core with more authority than any other downtown space. A sheer joy to walk about for anyone whose awake to them.
The photo at 11:40 appears to be from the Hedrich-Blessing Collection held by the Chicago History Museum. The odd thing about this photo (and the others of 860-880 construction) are that in the top several stories of the steel frame, you can see through to the opposite side. There is no core in either building. Traditionally the core of a high-rise is constructed, and the steel lags a couple floors below. I gave an architecture tour several years ago and noticed this detail while discussing the building, but have yet to find anyone who can explain it. I've talked to architects, architectural historians, building residents and others and most said they'd never noticed that about the photos.
Working & living in NYC during the 60's & 70's, I always walked by his prized Seagram's Building. Just a few years ago, on visiting a friend in Chicago, made a point to visit Lake Shore Towers.
On a more reasonable budget, he achieved just as much elegance as he did with Seagrams.
I'm in the middle of a small assignment on Mies and his contribution to interior design, this has been amazing, thank you!
It is beautiful that the building is raised, not blocking the view to the horizon on street level and give a more spacious atmosphere
Looks like it would be really windy maybe?
Really enjoying these videos. Would love to see a series on brutalism focusing not just on cornerstone works but also later representatives like Arthur Erickson or Paulo Mendes da Rocha, exploring connections between the ideas you present of Rohe, Wright etc. in their work, showing evolution and amalgamation of ideas.
This is pretty interesting to listen to as I work in that area and walk past those buildings often. Love my home city and the history behind it. Thank you 🙏🏻
Awesome video, love the ideas of creating around a datum and how it influences/directs how an "onlooker" or resident interacts with the space.
Excellent exposition of these fundamental elements of Mies’ work. Very intelligent.
The plan shown at 11:55 has the stairs and elevators located (too close together) within a central core, which has been proven unsafe during emergencies and building codes have evolved to require adequate exit separation. Good architecture should also take into account occupant safety.
Shut up bruh
Almost same design on the Twin World Trade Building with their elevator shaft and staircase in the middle of the building.
Chicago is such a beautiful city thats very underrated. The Architecure and the water esepcially in the summer turns into a mini south beach with all the boats and parties.
Great video Stewart, thank you.
What a character Mies Van der Rohe must have been. To design and "sell" these at a time when people still wore top hats and morning coat...
Thank you for this video. I live in one of his towers (The Colonades in Newark, NJ) and some things about it I love and others... not so much. Love the windows, the vents in benches at the base of the windows that allow fresh outside air. Dislike the cramped kitchens, the gaps around heating and wiring that allow vermin free range throughout the building. I guess architects get excited about artistically massing volumes, and not about these mundane details.
I would attribute gaps around mechanicals more as a by product of sloppy execution by the developer/builder and not as an intended design feature.
Love your vids that look at specific works! I’m an architecture student and have been given inspiration for different directions to take my projects from some of these dissections. Even did a precedent study on Toyo itos “u house” which I never would have been introduced to if not for you. Best wishes!
That's great! Good luck with your studies!
Great video! Having gone to school for Landscape Architecture, never having an opportunity to practice (class of '08) and absolutely loving the Architecture class that was part of the curriculum these videos fill my design cup when it gets half full. Thanks
This video, and studying mies' work, really shows you the difference between aesthetic significance, and architectural significance. The average person would look at his work and not be impressed, but when you actually experience the intent behind everything that is made, you can really feel the difference between the look, and the feeling you get when walking through the spaces.
Some of these designs really speak to me. Crown Hall feels like a the mid century dream of the future that our parents aspired to manifest. That staircase reeks of an inventor's minimalist napkin drawing. Beautiful. Occasionally, I kinda miss living in Chicago.
This is so cool. We had to do an analysis of the 880 towers and make a model of it in archi school. They turned out to be way more interesting than I thought during our research. Subscribed.
I had the pleasure of living in Lafayette Towers East in Detroit, nice to have this give some additional context to where it sat in his body of work.
Nice articulation -never loved those buildings feeling them to be like a sleeker version of brutalism with that huge “cage” aesthetic you mentioned -still seeing the inspiration and theory behind it brings more appreciation - also interesting to think that with newer technologies and materials buildings like this could be built much closer to the airy/ crystal feel of the sketches -appreciate your efforts and enjoyed the BARCELONA which i wasnt aware of -hitting the sub :)
more like marketing mumbo jumbo. if it ugly it ugly.
I grew up in Silver Springs State park in Plano, IL. My neighbor/closest house was The Farnsworth House. Eventually I became a tour guide there as a teenager. It’s now owned by the state and is a great place to tour. I’m fortunate to have been exposed to so much history in such a remote place. Meis was really ahead of his time and limited by the technology available to him.
Loved your short sharp piece on Mies. It's many years since I studied him in art school, and my sensibility has changed much in forty years! Will definitely keep visiting your other videos. Thanks!
That streetlevel open design looks neat, revealing the beautiful lake scenery. One could imagine it might also help preventing streets feeling like a wind tunnel with more open space.
Came across this randomly. Really nicely done. Thank you!
That was an excellent analysis of Mies' architecture. It explained the extraordinary experience of being and almost hovering between planes inside Mies' buildings. The experience of being inside these spaces is so much more than what is revealed in photos.
I first experienced this phenomena when I visited the Farnsworth House in 1973 when Dirk Lohan was restoring the house for Peter Palumbo. The visit was arranged by a mentor, architecture historian, Fred Koeper who put me up in his apartment in 910 North Lakeshore Drive. Now the house is open to the public for all to see.
Thank you - these are like classes for me about a subject I've always loved, but from afar. 💐
Loved your content! Makes me want to visit our Chicago architectural office soon (if this pesky pandemic would finally end...) It's interesting how the even the design competition entry on the far right looks like as contemporary and as stylish as anything we would build today. It looks so much like a mixed-use dual tower project I worked on in 2017!
Great film, I am designing a architecture course for 16 - 18 year olds in the UK - this is gold dust for me - thank you.
I thought that wall in the Barcelona pavillion was onyx not marble. An extraordinarily luxurious material.
My archi school teachers never explained Mies this elaborately, so I got to thank you for the new, advanced insight!
Great video, but you forgot Mies' best known trick if you will; his towers are black and disappear at night. His towers can be found in other North American cities like YUL. The first time I saw his towers here was at night and it had a floating effect. He used terrazzo as his base and the lighting was tuned to capture the stones frequency. It was simply inspiring. A hovering series of lit glass floors towering above a plaza, seemingly defying gravity.
Thanks for your videos Stewart, I just moved to Chicago and your videos really help me appreciate one of my favorite things about this city, and you're a effective educator, I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos
Wow, I love Mies and seen and read about his work, but your video brings it together really well and changed the way I look at his buildings entirely!
Thank you for explaining these elements so clearly.
As a Chicago resident I absolutely love your channel ☺️
This video (your explanation of the design though) helps illustrate and demonstrate that architecture is very much philosophy of good wholesome living. Good architecture is calming the mind and body. 8:48 some would say, coming home from stressful work to this view is needless luxury, but good architecture can provide that for all. There need to be no 'poor door entries' in new city towers (London social/affordable housing requirement) from an architectural point of view.
I love the dissection of the homes van der Rohe built. Super cool!
Interesting video, have a buddy who lives in one of the towers, I always loved them whenever I walked or drove past when I lived in Chicago many years ago.
These towers are almost identical to the Toronto Dominion tower complex in Toronto that he designed in the mid 60's. I worked there in the late 70's/early 80's. His design for the single story main banking branch at 55 King St West is a timeless stunner, and one my favourite architectural structures.
I've always liked this style of architecture but never really identified *why*, this video did a great job of breaking down the elements at play and i really enjoyed it. Moved to Chicago area not too long ago and your videos have been a great resource to learn about all the neat buildings I've seen
Brilliant video - again!. So interesting to learn more about the thought process and creative process of great architects and artists like Mies van der Rohe. Thank you.
Great channel content! Thank you. I worked in a VdR building in Toronto for many years. Loving it. I love particularly the pedestals the group of the Toronto TD Towers buildings stand on. I.M. Pei did the same trick. Many buildings in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong by Pei have that, although because of the density of the city, that feature is not prominent. And some pedestal by Pei were elevated in lesser heights compared to VdR's design. While visiting friends in Berlin, we got off Friedrich Strasse U-Bahn daily. Your choice of word 'unbuilt' really trumped me. I had to play it twice to understanding, probably you mean 'not built', and not 'built and then demolished' . as in the word 'I untied the bow on that wrapped gift box'. In the context, I was thinking, could it be that it was bombed out and therefore unbuilt....LOL. Well, as you know, context is everything also in architecture, pardon me for being slightly pedantic here. Thanks again for this great architectural clip.
Stewart - fantastic writing and presentation of complex concepts!
Great video - love the backstory and inspiration’examples from past projects. I do feel you missed an opportunity to talk about the design of the ground floor. In that it is inset, creating a much more open feeling street level experience. Many buildings are hard surfaced right down to the ground level, leaving passers by to walk around, this design invites passers by in, and through the space.
Excellent point. The way these buildings engage the ground and street is critical to understanding the brilliance of the design and appreciating their aesthetic merits. By recessing the first floor and mezzanine, the towers appear to be floating over the plaza - an effect seen and felt more keenly at night thanks to the backlit opaque glass. This sense of levitation is also seen in the cantilevered entry canopies and the canopy that connects the two towers on the east side of the plaza.
That thing about having an open ground floor was a feature of some farm houses in early mediaeval England and some other European countries. The animals lived in a partly walled space at ground level and the people lived upstairs.
Later on the ground floor was enclosed for human occupation and the animals were moved out into their own byre or stable nearby. That's why modern investigations may show the walls of the upper floor to be a century older than those of the lower floor.
A story like that is told about The Old Grammar School at Kings Norton in Worcestershire. Houses like that were common in Russia and the Ukraine.
Nowadays you may have cars parked under a house. I suppose that's preferable to having the scent of urine and manure wafting upwards.
Always a joy to behold your in depth reveals
This is my very first video of yours to discover and wow is this awesome! I've already subscribed to your channel and I can't wait to binge the whole thing! Thanks for producing content like this and keep it up!
Good stuff! The Barcelona Chair was also designed specifically for the Pavilion. It's one of my favorites for interiors. While you were shooting b-roll at IIT you should've got that graphic of Mies on the doorway of the McCormick Tribune center. I love that campus.
Subbed, friend. Again... Good stuff.
omg. I love the Barcelona Pavilion. Simon Unwin describes the building's relevance for the political situation in Germany/Weimar Republic at the time as one that represents dissent from the classical associations with hierarchy through architecture that the site (which was chosen by Mies and that used to have a symmetrical set of columns before the pavilion) used to demand.
Very interesting explanation of space relationships, and the historical connection of early single-family designs that were incorporated into skyscrapers. Thanks for posting.
Van der Rohe's approach to architecture was a swift of air as fresh as the wind through your hairs in this video...😅
Isn't nice to be outdoor!? I appreciate the opportunity of a real time live view of the subject 👌
I feel ludwig is highly inspired by the crystal palace, and wonder can those grand concept applied to everyday living.
what a genius, I love his design.
The Barcelona pavilion is the single most beautiful thing i have ever seen in my life
I live in Toronto, where the Toronto Dominion Centre still dominates downtown. And I grew up in Montreal in the 1960s, where Westmount Place was actually a source of pride, proof that our city was modern. Thanks for this video.
As always, an interesting lecture! I admire the innovation and logic of Mies van der Rohe's designs, but there can be too much of that "good thing" in many cities. Indeed, your long view of Lakeshore Drive is an example of that heavily dominant checkerboard effect that can become tiring to the viewer, however livable those buildings may be from the interior. And often the attempt at imitating the aesthetic of the International Style does not wear well: in my town, the main library was seriously ugly until it was remodeled, and there is a half-mile square of factory that utilized enameled panels on the facade that look terrible now. (PS - I also admire your luxuriant facial hair!)
In the 70s I worked on a construction project, near the Farnsworth house, for 2 or 3 weeks. It looked pretty cool in it's setting.
When I first saw it I marveled at the design. Asi I recall though the mosquitos were extremely thick. I believe it has been since demolished.
I learn so much from everyone of your videos Stewart, keep up the amazing work! Really making me wish I went to your school so I could’ve had you as a studio professor
This video is very well written. Great dialogue, great descriptions.
Thank you for this video, Mr. Hicks. Architects have an incredible job to do, but design is often at the mercy of execution. What vision!
That was WAY more interesting than I expected. Well done.
Great video about the towers! But, I always wonder who got the great idea to think: "Oh, we have a lakeshore and we build skyscrapers along it - beautiful! But let's first build an 8-lane highway so we have the noise we need in a city like Chicago."