PART 1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe / Wita Noack & Fritz Neumeyer

Show notes

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) was a pioneering modernist architect. Born in Aachen, he started as a bricklayer before moving to Berlin, where he worked for Bruno Paul and Peter Behrens. His first major commission, the Riehl House (1907), showed early signs of modernism. In 1921, he changed his name, marking his shift to modern architecture while maintaining classical influences.

As vice president of the German Werkbund, he led the Die Wohnung exhibition (1927), cementing his reputation. In 1930, he became Bauhaus director, striving to protect it from Nazi repression. After the school closed in 1933, Mies attempted to continue working in Germany, even accepting Nazi commissions, a decision he later had to justify.

In 1938, he emigrated to the U.S., becoming director of the Armour Institute (later IIT) in Chicago. There, he designed iconic buildings like the Farnsworth House and the Seagram Building, defining modernist architecture.

In the 1960s, he returned to Berlin to design the Neue Nationalgalerie, his final masterpiece, blending classical and modern elements. Asked if he’d return to Germany permanently, he replied, “It was difficult enough to find new roots once.” His legacy, rooted in simplicity and structural clarity, continues to shape architecture today.

For the first part of the Mies podcast, I invited Wita Noack, as head of the Mies van der Rohe Haus in Berlin a true expert about House Lemke where the institution is situated, and Fritz Neumeyer, THE Mies expert in Germany, who published several books about Mies van der Rohe and his work during the past 40 years.

This episode has been supported by The Mies van der Rohe house.

SHOW NOTES bauhausfaces.com | Instagram @bauhausfacespodcast | bauhaus faces podcast on YouTube | bauhaus faces podcast on Spotify

https://www.bauhausfaces.com

Mies van der Rohe Haus, Berlin https://www.miesvanderrohehaus.de |

Fritz Neumeyer: Mies van der Rohe. Das kunstlose Wort, 1986 https://dom-publishers.com/products/mies-van-der-rohe?pos=1&sid=0b3fb4d76&_ss=r

Fritz Neumeyer: Ausgebootet: Mies van der Rohe und das Bauhaus 1933 Outside the Bauhaus – Mies van der Rohe and Berlin in 1933, 2021 https://formundzweck.de/produkt/ausgebootet-mies-van-der-rohe-und-das-bauhaus-1933/

Baukunst Academy https://baukunstacademy.com

Works by Mies van der Rohe at MoMA https://www.moma.org/collection/works/87763

Mies van der Rohe Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, USA https://findingaids.loc.gov/db/search/xq/searchMfer02.xq?id=loc.mss.eadmss.ms013089&faSection=overview&faSubsection=did&dmdid=

Mies buildings in Germany https://www.miessociety.org/mies-works-germany

Mies buildings in USA https://www.miessociety.org/mies-works-usa

International Mies buildings https://www.miessociety.org/mies-works-international

All buildings by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe https://www.miessociety.org/mies-works

Edith Farnsworth House https://edithfarnsworthhouse.org

Interview with Mies van der Rohe, 1961 https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/wdr-retro-hier-und-heute/chicago-und-ludwig-mies-van-der-rohe/wdr/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9CZWl0cmFnLTM0YzBiMThjLTgwMzItNGI0Ny1iNjI2LWFlODEwZjI4MjU4Yg

COVER PHOTO Portrait of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1934), Hugo Erfurth - MKG Sammlung Online, in the public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86431569

MUSIC Future-Bass-(Medium-edit), AdobeStock

CHAPTER IMAGES

1. Portrait of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1934), Hugo Erfurth - MKG Sammlung Online, in the public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86431569
2. House Riehl, Neubabelsberg, 1907, in: Moderne Bauformen, 1910, S. 43, https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/moderne_bauformen1910/0069/scroll 3.Glass high-rise in Friedrichstraße, 1921, photo: https://de.pinterest.com/pin/304133781074417934/ 4.Weißenhof housing estate, apartment house by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Stuttgart, 1927, photo: 2005 by Shaqspeare, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=786531 5.Barcelona Pavilion, 1929 photo: 1999, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52977) 6.Cover of publication “Ausgebootet” by Fritz Neumeyer/Mies van der Rohe Haus, 2021 7.Bauhaus Dessau, photo: 2014 by Spyrosdrakopoulos, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38946836 8.House Lemke, 1932-33, photo: 2011, Manfred Brückels, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16727134 9.Crown Hall at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, 1956, photo: 2001 by Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15260356 10.Seagram Building, New York, 1954-1958, photo: 2017 by Ken OHYAMA, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=101432008 11.Farnsworth House, Plano (Illinois), 1945-50, photo: 2013, by Victor Grigas - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42288793 12.New National Gallery, Berlin, 1968, photo: 2021 by A. Savin, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117652895