Mies van der Rohe's design for a pavilion for the 1935 International Exposition

[MrLorack]

. . . . totally agree with you on mies!!! crap video

[NookieMalfas]

Citation: " I accept the idea that my beloved Germany being destroyed. That was the price to pay for ridding the World of a beast like Hitler". Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1944.

The title of the video is pure crap.

(sorry for my english..;-P)

[makeArchitecture]

@NookieMalfas You should do a little more work and understand that in 1934, things were not as black and white as they appeared in 1944. Also, you should read some of the pithy things you wrote below in the context of what was happening in Germany and the world in the early 30s. I would recommend that as I don't think you are aware of this.

[NookieMalfas]

Mies' research in Architecture had nothing to do with nazism or politics in general. Look at the project: flags and symbols aren't a part of the architecture and the architecture not resumed them in any way. This building could work for any ideology or institution.

[makeArchitecture]

@NookieMalfas

It's interesting how one can associate almost any form with any ideology or idea.

[NookieMalfas]

@makeArchitecture

Here in Italy, during the Rationalism (Fascist decades), ideology and symbols had great influence in Architecture. Look at the projects of Giuseppe Terragni for example. Elements of fascist ideology were reflected in spaces, buildings and much more. In a certain way the Architecture tried to incorporate within himself fascist symbols.

[NookieMalfas]

@makeArchitecture

But you must remember that this way of conducting projects was in any way a research in Architecture. Although I'm not that way politically I think that in some cases the results were excellent and it is appropriate to take account of them. 2 examples: "Casa del fascio" by Giuseppe Terragni in Como and "Casa della scherma" by Luigi Moretti in Rome. (look also the project of the "Danteum" by Terragni. A great building but unfortunately not realised)

[NookieMalfas]

These were cathedrals for the new religion, commerce and industry - factories, office blocks, skyscrapers and apartment towers, the modern urban landscape, whose architecture had yet to be invented. The form lay out there for him to discover. "The will of the epoch," he said, must be "translated into space" - as if he were just the draughtsman for a higher system, the universe's appointed architect

[NookieMalfas]

Mies believed, he said, in something more noble than politics, the ruthless pursuit of the perfect modern building, the true heir, he thought, to Greek temples and gothic cathedrals - buildings constructed on earth in order to escape it.

[NookieMalfas]

Mies was made director to bring order and discipline, and above all to make the Bauhaus apolitical. In 1930s Berlin, however, the politics of architecture would prove impossible to ignore.

[NookieMalfas]

Which was exactly why he'd ended up at the Bauhaus. By 1933, the school was a global cult, sending out from its converted telephone factory eager young missionaries to spread the modernist word: honesty of construction, death to decoration. Under its first director, Gropius, and its second, Hannes Meyer, these students were also trained in socialism - the efficient, industrial mass production of "good objects" for the people, which had led it into often violent controversy.

[NookieMalfas]

He didn't dress the flamboyant dandy like Frank Lloyd Wright, all cape and cane. All were diversions, Mies thought. Instead, he presented himself as a monolithic figure, silent and sober, like a monk. He read St Thomas Aquinas, St Augustine, Plato and Nietzsche. He had certainty. He had a plan, and politics wasn't part of it.

[NookieMalfas]

Mies was pathologically strong-willed, so protective of his independence that he would close his own school rather than submit to the demands of anyone else. Even the Nazis. Mies had schooled himself as modernism's cold, steely heart. He wasn't verbose and dilettantish like Le Corbusier. He didn't douse himself with sociology like Walter Gropius.

[NookieMalfas]

Ludwig Hilberseimer and the painter Vasili Kandinsky, were replaced with "individuals who guarantee to support the principles of the National Socialist ideology".

Mies gathered his colleagues, opened the champagne, and promptly closed the school himself.

[NookieMalfas]

So Mies tried another route. Every other day, he marched to Gestapo headquarters. This time, it took him three months to get to the top. On July 21, with the Bauhaus on the brink of bankruptcy, a letter arrived from the Gestapo giving permission to reopen, but only if the curriculum was rewritten to suit "the demands of the new State", and if two of its leftwing teachers,

[NookieMalfas]

"For any cultural effort," replied Mies, "one needs peace, and I would like to know whether we will have that peace." The Bauhaus stayed shut.

[NookieMalfas]

"That is what we at the Bauhaus want to do. We want to have good objects so that we do not have to throw them out of the window." Rosenberg was an architect himself. "Then we will understand each other," said Mies. "What do you expect me to do?" asked Rosenberg. "The Bauhaus is supported by forces fighting our forces."

[NookieMalfas]

The next day, Mies, knuckle-headed and stubborn as ever, went to the top. Alfred Rosenberg, the conservative minister of culture in the newly elected Nazi government, was renowned for his iron temperament. But then, so was Mies. "The Bauhaus has a certain idea," began Mies, in his nagging, methodical monotone, "but this idea has nothing to do with politics. Look at your writing table, this shabby writing table. Do you like it? I would throw it out the window." Mies rarely minced his words.

[NookieMalfas]

Mies' pace quickened. "Stop!" he shouted at the officers. "What's the idea? This is my school! It belongs to me!" Not any more, said an officer: the Gestapo was scouring the school for a secret printing press suspected of publishing anti-Nazi propaganda, and documents linking Bauhaus to the Communist party. Mies was released after an interrogation. But the Bauhaus stayed shut.

[NookieMalfas]

On the morning of April 11 1933, the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe turned up for work as normal. It was not a normal day. The Bauhaus, the 20th century's greatest school of art, architecture and design, was closed. The building was cordoned off by armed police and surrounded by crowds.

[MrSueVeneer]

this is not true, hitler hated the bauhaus and it's artist. Speer had the job wrapped up.

[EduarquiRJ]

This is to remember that unpolitical technocrats can be part of political interests: I admire Mies, but am grateful too with this video [he stayed in Germany till 1937, if I´m not wrong] because it´s a rare inofrmation about some twilight things from 1930s, even for modernists. Thank you very much for sharing with us.

[johnnylifelive]

This is pure shit. Mies never sought Hitler's ideology, and as mentioned, Hitler wouldn't really have gone for the international style, he preferred Schinckel...does that make Schinckel a Nazi architect? Screw your bizarre revisi0nist agenda...

[noxnoctis68]

mies was all about promoting himself, regardless of the nazi ideology...getting his design materialized was more important than politics.... it is important to note that Mies did not fall prey to hitler's well known classic taste. Mies did enter the competition, but remained Mies.

[mogoduc]

Title and comment sucks! Mies has to leave "Nazi Germany". He was an unpolitical guy.

[huynhminhtri]

again , too much straight lines architect ,Amigo !

[AryanCrusader777]

Very nice

[martinmodule]

good