HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Discussion Forums > Buildings & Architecture


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #1  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 2:15 AM
X-fib X-fib is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NE Wisconsin
Posts: 220
Mies in Chicago: Perfection or Eyesore?

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe's Chicago buildings are immediately recognizable as his designs: 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, IBM, Federal Center, Illinois Center and on. Few modern architects can make a similar claim for their works. Even those buildings that were Mies inspiration such as Lake Point Tower, or influenced such as the Daley Center, Sears Tower and arguably John Hancock, Marina City, 333 Wacker, etc. etc. are collectively Miesian. They form the basis of 1950s, '60s and early '70s architectual design in Chicago.

Today many view his works as dark, teutonic, or utilitarian to the point of being inhuman. Architecture not as art but as pure form. To others they represent perfection. The absolute definition of form following fuction, free of a concrete blanket and devoid of purposeless ornamentation. Taken in perspective, in their day Mies buildings were a radical departure from the mondane of the earlier modern movement and from the general mediocrity of the period architecture. The reality of Mies concepts is that his narrow interpretation left little room for variability. Even arguably his most beautiful design, Lake Point Tower, is little more than a curvelinear Federal Center. Recognizability had its drawbacks in commonality.

Mies was certainly the most influentual architect of his time, in Chicago at least. Whether his buildings represent perfection or an eyesore is in the beholder. To me a Chicago without Mies would be unimaginable.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 3:28 AM
urbanlife's Avatar
urbanlife urbanlife is offline
A before E
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Milwaukie, Oregon
Posts: 11,752
I really can't wait to go there and see his work in person. I think then I will make my true judgment on how it works and feels.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #3  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 3:50 AM
spyguy's Avatar
spyguy spyguy is offline
THAT Guy
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 5,949



Not quite in Chicago:


Proof enough for me
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #4  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 4:12 AM
carfreak01's Avatar
carfreak01 carfreak01 is offline
I Am A Golden God
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 1,301
Modernism works best when it's contrasted with other architecture. Mies got that right with his locations and the fact that he did it first. When cities became inundated with only modern architecture, and pale imitations at that, they became eyesores.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #5  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 4:30 AM
Arriviste's Avatar
Arriviste Arriviste is offline
What we play is life.
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Calgary, Canada
Posts: 1,517
Mies and his principles define beauty in architecture for me. The more I learn about him, his buildings, and his theories, the more I appreciate his genius, and understand his downfalls.
__________________
I shut my eyes in order to see.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #6  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 6:36 AM
nygirl1 nygirl1 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 566
I won't go with perfection, i'll go with pleasing. In no way is mies an eyesore. You just have to get his work, ther sharp angles and minimalist designs.
__________________
Brooklyn: The Motherland.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #7  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 3:30 PM
X-fib X-fib is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NE Wisconsin
Posts: 220
Thanks Spyguy for posting the great pics!
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #8  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2006, 4:07 PM
bryson662001's Avatar
bryson662001 bryson662001 is offline
BeenThere,DoneThat
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: A swanky suburb in my fancy pants
Posts: 2,248
Quote:
Originally Posted by carfreak01
Modernism works best when it's contrasted with other architecture. Mies got that right with his locations and the fact that he did it first. When cities became inundated with only modern architecture, and pale imitations at that, they became eyesores.
Bingo!......neither perfection nor an eyesore but a wonderful contribution to the whole.
__________________
Forget it Jake ................it's Market East
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #9  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2006, 4:20 AM
Altauria's Avatar
Altauria Altauria is offline
Resident Composer
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 607
I suppose it depends on which side of my brain is throbbing at the time. I'm pretty much on the fence with his works - and the whole style for that matter. On one side I absolutely love the clean, orderly, and logical lines. I can certainly see how some people on this board (like SteelyDan in particular, as he's very outspoken about it) can find perfection and total beauty in these buildings. And other times I see these as ugly monstrosities, and uninspiring boxes. For examples, I love the Seagram Building, but absolutely loath the IIT buildings. More than anything else, I think my reaction to this style very much depends on how it is taken care of.

For this whole style I prefer that strip of Park Ave. in New York over anywhere else.
__________________
Fear is the mind killer.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #10  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2006, 5:17 AM
Steely Dan's Avatar
Steely Dan Steely Dan is offline
devout Pizzatarian
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Lincoln Square, Chicago
Posts: 29,635
anyone who would suggest that mies' masterworks are eyesores does not deserve to be dignified with a proper response.
__________________
"Missing middle" housing can be a great middle ground for many middle class families.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #11  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2006, 9:55 AM
JManc's Avatar
JManc JManc is online now
Dryer lint inspector
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Houston/ SF Bay Area
Posts: 37,789
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
anyone who would suggest that mies' masterworks are eyesores does not deserve to be dignified with a proper response.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #12  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2006, 11:04 PM
mikeelm mikeelm is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 786
whta's interesting about the 860-880 buildings is since most of the high-rises along Lake Shore Dr. which are also newer buildings, probably built later are mostly brick or concrete structures. I wonder why? I know of 1 other steel apartment on the north side which I think is near Foster Ave.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #13  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2006, 11:31 PM
X-fib X-fib is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NE Wisconsin
Posts: 220
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeelm
whta's interesting about the 860-880 buildings is since most of the high-rises along Lake Shore Dr. which are also newer buildings, probably built later are mostly brick or concrete structures. I wonder why? I know of 1 other steel apartment on the north side which I think is near Foster Ave.
There are steel skeleton buildings next to 860-880 LSD, see spy guys pic.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #14  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2006, 12:58 AM
Wheelingman04's Avatar
Wheelingman04 Wheelingman04 is offline
Pittsburgh rocks!!
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Salem, OH (near Youngstown)
Posts: 8,800
Most of his works look okay to me.
__________________
1 hour from Pittsburgh and 1 hour from Cleveland
Go Ohio State!!
Ohio Proud!
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #15  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2006, 3:34 AM
Marcu Marcu is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 1,649
Mies' works (and the works of his followers) only become eyesores if they're not kept up. Then they start to look cheap and budget-oriented. Otherwise, the works are flawless.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #16  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2006, 4:06 AM
UrbanSophist's Avatar
UrbanSophist UrbanSophist is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Aberdeen, U.K.
Posts: 794
Quote:
Originally Posted by spyguy View Post
I mean look at that! It's amazing!
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #17  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2006, 4:58 AM
i_am_hydrogen i_am_hydrogen is offline
tilted & shifted
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Chicago
Posts: 4,608
The genius of Mies lies in the power of his imagination. He was able to look beyond the pomp and circumstance of a building’s veneer and imagine what its inner-most soul looks like. And we see his interpretation of that soul whenever we look at the IBM Building, Seagram, 660-680 N LSD, and the like—a building absolutely stripped down to express nothing more than its structural shape, reduced to an abstraction. Simple, repetitive lines. Austere purity. And black. Black: the absence of color. What a beautiful vision of the essence of a building. It’s as if he was striving to allow a building to exist in a state as close as possible to non-existence.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #18  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2006, 6:18 PM
X-fib X-fib is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NE Wisconsin
Posts: 220
^^^ Well said!
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #19  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2006, 8:35 PM
Cirrus's Avatar
Cirrus Cirrus is offline
cities|transit|croissants
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 18,344
Quote:
Architecture not as art but as pure form.
I reject the claim that modernism was about form after function for two reasons:
1. Modernist buildings only function well given a certain set of imperfect and temporary circumstances.
2. Sculpture was and is very much a part of the program. Modernism was a new paradigm of architectural artistry to be sure, but not at all a rejection of it.

Quote:
Modernism works best when it's contrasted with other architecture. Mies got that right with his locations and the fact that he did it first. When cities became inundated with only modern architecture, and pale imitations at that, they became eyesores.
Bingo.

The whole point of the modernist paradigm (in all its incarnations, including the current versions such as deconstructivism) is to parody whatever is "normal". Modernist buildings work only so long as they remain individually shocking.

I can appreciate how a sharp Meis box would have looked when new, surrounded by heavy, ornate stone buildings. No doubt a striking piece of sculpture. But in walking around the Chicago of today, I am overwhelmed by the inhumanity of modernism. Every successive copycat made and continues to make Meis' work less and less interesting. Every time another building like his is built, all buildings like his become worse.

It’s certainly not a perfect system, but neither is it his fault that the buildings become eyesores over time. It’s the fault of an architectural establishment that lacks Meis’ genius.
__________________
writing | twitter | flickr | instagram | ssp photo threads
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #20  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2006, 10:19 PM
X-fib X-fib is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NE Wisconsin
Posts: 220
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
It’s the fault of an architectural establishment that lacks Meis’ genius.
And a failure of architects to bring forth their own visions and in not allowing their designs to be deluded into something that resembles a popular trend.
Reply With Quote
     
     
This discussion thread continues

Use the page links to the lower-right to go to the next page for additional posts
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Discussion Forums > Buildings & Architecture
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 6:08 AM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.