{"id":4557,"date":"2025-08-26T09:30:44","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/?p=4557"},"modified":"2025-08-29T15:09:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T15:09:57","slug":"im-teaching-students-not-to-follow-mies-van-der-rohes-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2025\/08\/26\/im-teaching-students-not-to-follow-mies-van-der-rohes-example\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’m teaching students not to follow Mies van der Rohe’s example”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Crown<\/div>\n

Architecture students are often taught about Mies van der Rohe<\/a> as a master of modernism<\/a> but they should also learn about the problematic legacy of some of his most significant work,\u00a0writes Leen Katrib.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I first heard of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as an undergraduate in the early 2010s.<\/strong> Mies was one of the most influential modern architects; I saw him as a disciplinary anchor \u2013 someone whose work helped me situate the contemporary architects I would later work for and follow.<\/p>\n

That’s why I added his works to the map of my own architectural pilgrimage: New York’s Seagram Building; the Barcelona Pavilion<\/a>; Farnsworth House<\/a> in Plano, Illinois; and Crown Hall, home to Illinois Institute of Technology<\/a>‘s (IIT) College of Architecture in Chicago, which Mies led from 1939 to 1958.<\/p>\n

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I’ve been leading the charge on a critical revision of Mies van der Rohe’s racial legacy in America<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At IIT, Mies was given a rare opportunity and a bigger responsibility than most architects could ever dream of: to design a new campus masterplan, all its institutional buildings, and a new architectural curriculum. The campus became one of the world’s largest collections of his buildings.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, while I was designing a university building myself, I came across a report of objects recovered during a tunnel repair near Crown Hall. They belonged to Mecca Flats, a hotel-turned-residence built in 1892 that was significant during Chicago’s Black Renaissance. The building’s generously lit glass-roof atrium and the vibrancy of its publicly accessible open courtyards set the stage for an active communal life that inspired The Mecca Flat Blues by jazz composer Jimmy Blythe and In the Mecca by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks.<\/p>\n

Despite a decade of fierce resistance the tenants were evicted, and in 1952 Mecca Flats was demolished to make way for Crown Hall. In fact, vast swaths of Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood were leveled as part of the larger urban renewal project that would make way for IIT’s campus expansion, designed by Mies van der Rohe.<\/p>\n