100 Artists & Designers to Know: Mies van der Rohe

I’m a total history buff. I read biographies and historical novels for fun. I have just about wiped out the Barnes & Noble Classics section, by choice.

So I thought, designer and bookworm that I am, that it would be fun to do a series on my blog of artists and designers to know. Just a quick little rundown of what they did and why it’s important.

FIRST UP: MIES VAN DER ROHE.

Why, you ask? Because it’s my fish’s name. No joke. But also, because I’m pretty sure you’ve seen this chair around:

It is the Barcelona Chair, and it was designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1927 for his German pavilion at the International Exposition in Barcelona.

Ever heard of the Bauhaus? The Bauhaus was an incredibly influential school in Germany founded in 1919 and eventually disbanded during WWII. Mies van der Rohe was one of the directors of the school, whose main goal was to “renew architecture.” The founder, Walter Gropius, said this in his Manifesto:

“Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future together. It will combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form.”

{Side note: Sounds familiar right? I love this concept: we with all of our unique skills as craftspeople, artists, and designers, are equal and should work together to build a synthesized and harmonious and BETTER future.}

Mies van der Rohe has a great many accomplishments to which he can lay claim, but I’ll leave you with the Farnsworth House, an amazingly sculptural home of metal and glass.

Isn’t is incredible to think that this home was designed in the late 1940′s and it still appears modern to us?

Just like the Barcelona chair. You’ll see it used in movies all the time when they’re trying to set an ultra posh, ultra modern, or even sometimes space-age feeling.

So what do you think of a mini-history exploration? Are you bored to tears or don’t mind a little historical inspiration? :-)