h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(Hi! Is this the right place to submit? I know my article is a bit down on the professor's work, but I lived on the I.I.T. campus, which is entirely comprised of buildings either designed by Mies Van der Rohe himself, or inspired by him. After a while, it all starts to get repetitive and mildly depressing.)

Mies van der Rohe

Ah, there is nothing quite as good as minimalism done well and the works of Mies van der Rohe prove this by showing what happens when it is done poorly. As near as can be determined, his primary influence comes from shoeboxes, but more on that later.

Mies van der Rohe became popular during the great economic boom following World War II. His minimalist building designs became popular because they looked so darned efficient (efficiency being the battlecry of industrialists of the time). The bitter irony is that his buildings were anything but efficient; they are notoriously expensive to heat, cool and maintain.

Crown Hall

The reason Mies van der Rohe is so closely associated with Chicago is that he was head of the architecture department at the Illinois Institute of Technology located in Chicago's colorful South Side. The architecture department happens to be housed in a building of van der Rohe's design: the famous Crown Hall.

Crown Hall is basically a giant glass shoebox with very tall girders on top.

Alumni Hall

Alumni Hall, also at the Illinois Institute of Technology is a giant squat shoebox.

Perlstein Hall

Completing the professor's I.I.T. trilogy, Perlstein Hall continues the theme from Alumni Hall and is a giant squat shoebox.

Lake Shore Drive Apartments

Giant shoeboxes set on their sides.

Farnsworth House

If you are willing to travel to nearby Plano, Illinois, you can see another work by Mies van der Rohe, the Farnsworth House. The Farnsworth House is a big shoebox with the sides cut out.

Seagram Building

To see the Seagram Building, you will have to travel to New York, New York. The Seagram Building is a giant shoebox set on its side on stilts.

Mies van der Rohe Buildings in Germany

If you are still not satisfied and want to see more works by Mies van der Rohe, I would recommend traveling to Germany and studying the works of the dadaists, as they were quite frankly more interesting.

Hi are you still interseted in contributing some to the Chicago artilce?

Friar

ps. sorry about the extreme delay in my response, real life has its side effects

Yes, quite interested.

Sorry for my even longer response to your response. I gave up on checking for a while there.