Cut-and-paste poet: Mies van der Rohe's collages

Modernist muse: the art world significance of Mies van der Rohe’s collages

An interior perspective of the Convention Hall, Chicago, Illinois, 1952–54, by Mies van der Rohe.

(Image credit: The Museum of Modern Art, New York / Scala, Florence / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn)

last updated 7 October 2022

Drawn from MoMA's collections, a host of collages by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe are on display together for the first time at the Ludwig Forum in Aachen, Germany. The works provide a glimpse into van der Rohe’s design process, yet are also autonomous pieces of art. Displayed beside other artists of the 20th century, they place van der Rohe at the heart of the modernist movement.

Made between the years 1910 and 1965, van der Rohe used these large-scale collages to visualise space, presenting them for competitions, exhibitions and journals and using them to explore his ideas and theories for Neues Bauern or ‘New Building’.

The art world significance of Mies van der Rohe’s collages — *Interior perspective of Project for Concert Hall, 1942, by Mies van der Rohe.*

Combining illustration, sketches and photomontage, the collages are architecturally led, setting the principles of modernism with strong dimension-building lines and striking spatial concepts for interiors for built projects such as his Convention Hall in Chicago (1952–54) and also those that were never realised, such as Museum For a Small City (1941–43) and the Georg Schaefer Museum Project, Schweinfurt, Germany (1960–63).

Along with a precise grasp on composition from his architectural training, his artistic aesthetic took influence from the 20th century movements of dada, constructivism, and De Stijl (van der Rohe was both friends with artists and a collector himself).

The exhibition follows a chronological course, yet places his works in historical and artistic contexts, aligning them with contemporaries including Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch and László Moholy-Nagy, artists who were lifelong influences to his practice such as Paul Klee and Georges Braque, and practitioners who address his own architectural work, such as Thomas Ruff.

Curated by Andreas Beitin and Holger Otten in collaboration with Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt, Germany, the exhibition will travel to Schweinfurt next, from 26 February – 28 May 2017.

Interior perspective of Museum for a Small City, 1942–43, by Mies van der Rohe.

INFORMATION

’Mies van der Rohe: The MoMA Collages’ is on view until 12 February 2017. For more information, visit the Ludwig Forum website

ADDRESS

Ludwig Forum
Jülicher Strasse 97–109
52070 Aachen

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Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.

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