Mies in America

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by Peter Eisenman, Detlef Mertins and Werner Oechslin,

Edited by Phyllis Lambert

Harry N. Abrams Inc.

Due/Published August 2001, 584 pages, cloth

ISBN 0810967286

This study of one of the 20th century's greatest architects re-evaluates the entire body of work undertaken by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe between his emigration to America in 1938 and his death in 1969. Based on considerable new research and bringing to light previously unstudied material - drawings and collages, photographs, project documents, letters, and extensive interviews with many of those who worked with Mies - this is the first study to make full and in-depth use of available archival material. Its nine essays, distinct in style of argumentation, focus, and ambition, constitute a new interpretation of a major figure in architectural history. Mies in America offers readers a deeper immersion into Mies's thought than has been attempted before. Venturing a more complex response than the familiar reading of Mies as a grand master of modernism, these essays retrace the genesis of Mies's design in order to uncover his ambitions, investigate the implicit outlines of the Miesian city, follow the process of designing for America, and look at Mies as a touchstone for contemporary practice."