German-American architect who won fame for his sparse, clean and uncluttered designs of buildings of brick, steel and glass. The son of a master mason and stonecutter, he was taught the elements of architecture by his dad . Mies received his principal training as employee of furniture designer Bruno Paul, 1905-1907 and then was employed under Peter Behrens 1908-1911. He opened his own office in Berlin in 1912.
In 1927 he built his first steel framed building and was known for his motto, “Less Is More.” Mies designed the German Pavilion in 1929, including the interior, becoming famous for the Barcelona Chair. He then became director of the Bauhaus School of Design 1930 through its closure in 1933. Mies moved to the U.S. in 1937 and became the director of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, 1938-1958. He aspired to marry his visionary modernism with America’s industrial technology to make a language of architecture that expressed the epoch and in so doing, produced many buildings in the U.S. including skyscrapers, museums, schools and residences. Considered one of the three most influential architects of the 20th century, his skyscraper designs in particular have been copied or adapted by most architects in the working field today. The recipient of many honors, he also published his own book, “The Art of Structure” in 1965.
Mies died at age 83 on 17 August 1969 in Chicago, Illinois. The best of what he did is still utterly beautiful as seen in a retrospective that opened in late June 2001 at two New York museums.
Link to Wikipedia biography