Born on the 27th of March 1886 in the city of Aachen, Germany, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is an architect, interior designer and a highest advocate of the Modern Movement in architecture and furniture works. He is usually recognized today for his modernist “skin and bones” architecture as well as for the some modern furniture designs he completed for his buildings.

Similar to most of his contemporaries during that moment, Mies van der Rohe (whose true name is Maria Ludwig Mies) begun as an architect prior to branching out to furniture works. Missing some formal college education, van der Rohe moved to Berlin in 1908 and worked as a beginner to the prominient German architect Peter Behrens. It was during his visit at Behrens that Mies van der Rohe discovered the current design theories of the time and met fellow modernist architects Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. After overcoming his apprenticeship, Mies van der Rohe worked shortly as a construction manager before working his own professional practice as an architect. Little of the plans he designed that are still standing at present include the Lafayette Park in the United States and the Bacardi office building in Mexico.

Mies van der Rohe began creating furniture as a way to complement his architectural works. Two excellent examples of which made up the renowned Barcelona Chair of the German Pavilion in Barcelona, Spain and the Tugendhat Chair of the Villa Tugendhat in the Czech Republic. Van der Rohe’s furniture style are different for their day for including the light, minimalist features of modern architecture as well as its initation of both customary and modern elements. Mies van der Rohe was also to have sought help from his longtime buddies, the German interior designer Lilly Reich, whiledoing his designs.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe passed his life on August 17, 1969 and lies at the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, USA.

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