Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Mies) was a German-American architect who had gained notoriety as being one of the most prominent figures in the rise of modern Architecture in the West and who had been one of the trailblazers for minimalist design in regards to large scale building models. One of Mies drawings which had no name or print within the drawing had been a sketch of a rather large building which had scaled what looked to be a 7 story estate in a rather urbanized and city-like town area. Mie’s work dates back to 1921, a shift in cultural norms in Germany and in America alike with the newly found creation of the Nazi party in Germany and the rise of Adolf Hitlers regime and the Progressive Era for Americans, a juxtaposition beyond the artworks purpose. The artwork’s audience given the time and the place must have been Germans involved in the works hence the publication of the piece in German magazine, DAZ. The piece had been drawn on paper with charcoal and crayon which gives the piece a faded and smudged look. The yellowed paper hints to us the older type of paper used to draw on as well as the charcoal and the dark and simple elements which evokes some pathos through its mundane and eerie setting. The rather simple design even functions as to foreshadow future development of architecture of American skyscrapers and the abnormally tall designs with floors that are all of the same size that hold thousands of occupants. The building resembles features of a hospital, office or a parking garage which had been ahead of German architecture yet right in time for the Progressive time that America had been getting into in the Roaring 20’s. The building also symbolizes the simplicity of the life of the working class of the world who day in and day out keep themselves cooped in these buildings developing stress and overworking themselves. Mike’s work speaks to the new generation of the working class which is slowly developing to fit more subgroups of people with women gaining a bigger role in the working class as well as African Americans getting labor jobs. Mike’s work comes with the intent to remove the approach of the new age of unnecessary and overwhelming designs that we constantly use in American culture which come with a higher cost and more labor inducing while the simple design strays away from these ideals and functions to serve its purpose of being easy to comprehend and comforting. Mies work also uses several instances of logos with the historical timeline of architectural development and the rise of technology to compensate and fulfill these new developments. Overall Mies piece contains a complex message within the simplicity of the piece and the artistic craftsmanship within the charcoal strokes on the paper which breeds a new form of modern works coupled with new societal roles of the people that come with it. As we continue to look at artwork in the 90’s and in the 2000’s we see a flood of artwork that involves skyscrapers and other high scaling infrastructure that speaks on modern socio-economic issues that nations across the world face.
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