Long live the Christmas card – a ritual that feels increasingly endangered in our digital age. The simple act of putting pen to paper and sending wishes inked in black or blue is, in a word of instant messages, profoundly gratifying.

In celebrating this venerable tradition, we found ourselves asking: what sort of Christmas card does an architect send? What festive missives emerged from the minds of Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright, or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe? We scoured archives, museums and foundations to find out.

The discoveries are a delight: historic cards that are clever, charming and whimsical – testaments to the creativity of the 20th century’s greatest architectural minds. Read on for a look at festive designs from the Eameses, Wright et al, where holiday cheer meets design brilliance.

Charles and Ray Eames

These cards were illustrated by Charles Eames between 1927 and 1931, before he met his wife and creative partner, Ray. Over the years, he created hand-drawn Christmas cards for family and friends, many of them lithographs enhanced with hand colouring. Among the collection are a wreathed door drawn for Fred and Lucia Woermann, the parents of his first wife, Catherine (top); and a card depicting Charles, Catherine and their daughter Lucia standing on a cartoon-like map of St Louis, Missouri (bottom).

These photographic Christmas cards were created by Charles and Ray – posed and photographed by the couple in the 1940s.

Frank Lloyd Wright

This 1907 Christmas card, created in Oak Park, Illinois, is rendered in ink and pencil on tracing paper. It features text drawn from a poem titled ‘The Four Seasons in Four Verses’ in Book Four, Freedom, of Wright’s An Autobiography.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

A card that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed and sent to architect Carter Manny in 1968.

Alison Smithson

In December 2025, Roca Gallery in London launched an exhibition of Christmas cards by Alison Smithson, a British architect and key figure in the brutalist movement, who collaborated with her husband Peter Smithson on projects such as Robin Hood Gardens and Hunstanton Secondary Modern School. Alison created cards annually, a tradition now continued by her daughter Soraya, who organised the exhibition.

Louis H Sullivan

This card was designed and signed by Louis H Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor and one of his key influences, in 1920. Sullivan is often called the ‘father of the skyscraper’, with key works including the Wainwright Building in Missouri, the Guaranty (Prudential) Building in New York, and Chicago’s Carson Pirie Scott Store.

Denys Lasdun

Denys Lasdun was one of the UK’s key authors of modernist and brutalist architecture, known for projects such as the National Theatre and the Royal College of Physicians in London. This 1950 card, titled 'Egophile', depicts Lasdun alongside fellow architects Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew and Lindsey Drake as classical columns.

This card was sent to rather than received by Lasdun, and features a drawing of the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park. Signed ‘from the medical orderlies’, it appears to have been sent by the staff there.

Jane Drew and Max Fry

This card, designed in 1953, depicts Chandigarh, India, where British modernist architect Jane Drew worked on urban planning and housing projects alongside Le Corbusier.

This card, from 1948, shows the home and office at 63 Gloucester Place, London, which Drew shared with her husband and creative partner, Max Fry, who frequently collaborated with her on educational, housing and institutional projects.

Ernő Goldfinger

Ernő Goldfinger, the Hungarian-born British modernist architect known for brutalist residential buildings in London such as Trellick Tower and Balfron Tower, created this Christmas card in 1938 for himself and his wife Ursula.

Chamberlin, Powell & Bon

The architect trio behind the Barbican Estate created many Christmas cards over the course of two decades. These cards, produced between 1960 and 1982, drew on their extensive travels to Italy, Spain, Egypt, India and the USA, reflecting the wide-ranging influences that informed their work, yet maintaining a distinctly brutalist sensibility.

Stephen Rowland Pierce

Stephen Rowland Pierce was a British architect and town-planning consultant, known mainly for his work on Norwich City Hall (1938), widely regarded as one of Britain’s finest interwar public buildings. This 1920 Christmas card, rendered in black and white, depicts a townhouse in the modern style of the period.

Michael Ventris

Michael Ventris worked primarily on postwar housing and school projects, his modernist designs emphasising functionality and clarity. This 1946 Christmas card, sent to his son Nikki, shows Father Christmas at an architectural drawing board with a sack full of miniature houses by his side.

Raymond McGrath

Raymond McGrath was chief architect for the BBC in the 1930s, designing studios and broadcasting facilities with a functional, modernist aesthetic. His 1930 black-and-white card depicts a fantastical underground house called The Burrow.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) is the German‑American architect whose name is synonymous with crystalline glass towers and that well-known modernist architecture aphorism, 'less is more.' Indeed, 'Mies' (the shorthand he's often known by) is not only a seminal figure in midcentury building design but, through his rich and influential output, has become the aesthetic epitome of 20th-century corporate America and the wider Western world beyond.

Who was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe?

Born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies in Aachen, Germany, the architect worked under Peter Behrens and then alongside Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, before forging his own path, famously adding the Dutch-inspired 'van der Rohe' to lend his surname a touch of aristocratic gravitas. This very self-conscious construction of a personal brand was entirely novel for an architect at that time. The prolific career that followed is dotted with instantly recognisable buildings and a portfolio which has placed him firmly within the international stardom of the 20th century's most influential architects.

Yet the pendulum has been swinging between admiration and critique, with the reappraisal of modernism in more recent years. Not helped by the particularly male-dominated cohort of which Mies was the consummate protagonist, his work has been dampened by the notion that he represents all the arrogance, pomposity and even chauvinistic associations of his movement (not helped by the fact that his regular, close collaborator, German modernist designer Lilly Reich, has been historically overlooked). His taciturn and unapologetic personality made Mies both revered and reviled in his lifetime. However, the immaculate detailing, perfect poise and timelessness of his designs, whether seen in the tubular-steel Barcelona chair or the sharp beauty of the Seagram Building in New York, make this architect’s output hard not to love, despite the modernist ego of the man, something which has aged much less well.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: a brief history

Mies was raised in his father’s stonemasonry shop in Aachen. He entered architecture through drawing ornament and building detail. Time spent in Berlin brought him to architect Peter Behrens’ studio, where he absorbed the power of structure, proportion and industry.

Unlike his peers, Mies avoided ideological manifestos. His early work, such as his glass skyscraper proposals of the 1920s and the Weissenhof Estate house project in Stuttgart (1927), spoke in spatial terms: a language of clean lines, flat roofs, and an economy of means. In the Barcelona Pavilion (designed with Lilly Reich for the Barcelona International Exhibition 1929), his sensibilities became fabulously coherent: walls as floating planes, a space defined by material, light and precision.

Mies’ work is often labelled minimalist, but his approach was exacting and economical rather than cold and empty. He developed a formal grammar of steel frames, open spans, and surfaces in glass, travertine or bronze. His Villa Tugendhat (1930) in Brno fused comfort with discipline.

Emigrating to Chicago in 1938 (where he lived for the rest of his life), he re-established himself through the Illinois Institute of Technology, where his Crown Hall (1956) became a blueprint for structural purity. Then came the towers: 860–880 Lake Shore Drive, sleek and well-proportioned on Chicago’s waterfront; and the Seagram Building (1958) in New York, co-designed with Philip Johnson. The latter set a new global standard for corporate modernity; defined, austere, and unmistakably 'Mies.'

Mies has been both lionised and problematised. His buildings have been described as technically demanding, emotionally distant, and often resistant to reuse. His vision was unapologetically top-down, rooted in order and control. Yet the allure remains. The Edith Farnsworth House (1951), all glass, austere lines and restraint, still captivates with its poise and is a vibrant art hub for its region.

The Neue Nationalgalerie (completed in 1968 and fully overhauled in 2022) in Berlin remains a masterclass in weightless monumentality. In an era of flux, climate consciousness and architectural pluralism, Mies’s rigid ideals can seem out of sync. But his work continues to challenge and seduce precisely because for its conviction. In a world of blurred edges, his clarity still very much cuts it and attracts attention.

Scroll down for ten of the best buildings in the Miesian universe.

Mies van der Rohe's 10 key buildings

Villa Wolf

Where: Gubin, Poland
When: 1926

Mies’ first major residential commission, Villa Wolf, signalled his transition from traditional forms to a modernist vocabulary. With its flat roof, horizontal lines and simplified geometry, the house laid the groundwork for the architect’s mature style. Destroyed in WWII, it survives now only in drawings, archive photography and reconstructions.

Barcelona Pavilion (aka German Pavilion)

Where: Barcelona, Spain
When: 1929

A temporary structure with permanent impact. Built for the 1929 International Exposition's German contribution, the Barcelona Pavilion distilled Mies’ philosophy into marble, glass and steel. Its flowing, open plan and minimal structure redefined modern space. This is an architecture of calm, clarity and composure, famously accompanied by the iconic Barcelona chair.

Villa Tugendhat

Where: Brno, Czechia
When: 1930

A domestic masterwork that blends luxury with restraint. Villa Tugendhat features a free-flowing plan, luxurious materials like onyx and Macassar ebony, and panoramic glazing that opens to the landscape. It’s early proof that modernism need not be cold and overly austere; Mies’ only requirement was relentless precision.

Edith Farnsworth House

Where: Plano, Illinois, USA
When: 1946–1951

A glass box in a meadow, designed as a retreat for Dr. Edith Farnsworth. The house elevates modern living to abstraction; no walls, no privacy, just floating planes of glass and steel. A poetic, if impractical, manifesto that blurred the boundary between architecture and art. Air conditioning was added later making Mies’ box altogether more palatable.

860–880 Lake Shore Drive

Where: Chicago, USA
When: 1949–1951

These twin towers on the edge of Lake Michigan brought Mies’ glass-and-steel language into American urban life. Their modular façades, exposed structure and grid logic set the template for countless postwar office and residential blocks, although few match Lake Shore Drive’s elegance.

Seagram Building

Where: New York, USA
When: completed 1958

Arguably Mies’ American masterpiece. Designed with Philip Johnson, this Park Avenue tower is modernism fully manifest: a bronze-toned curtain wall, perfectly proportioned structure, and a public plaza that defined mid-century urban corporate architecture. Seagram is still a totem of restraint and corporate power, in equal measure.

S.R. Crown Hall

Where: Chicago, USA
When: 1950–1956

Built for the architecture school at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Crown Hall is Mies at his most refined. A vast, column-free interior is suspended beneath a steel roof frame, allowing pure space and uninterrupted light. As much a temple to structure as to architectural education.

Toronto Dominion Centre

Where: Toronto, Canada
When: 1964–1969

Mies’ largest project and his most complete urban vision. The TD Centre’s black steel towers and granite plaza brought a sense of monumentality and order to the downtown of a Toronto that wanted to make a big impact on the world of business. It was International Style as corporate identity: confident, sober, and impossibly crisp. Now housing approximately 21,000 workers, it remains the largest commercial complex in Canada.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library

Where: Washington DC, USA
When: Completed 1972

Completed posthumously, this civic library is Mies’ only public building in the U.S. capital. With its dark glass façade and rational grid, it reads as a serene monument to knowledge. Recent renovations have revitalised the space while respecting Mies’ original clarity.

Neue Nationalgalerie

Where: Berlin, Germany
When: completed 1968

Mies’ final project in Europe, and one of his most profound. A floating steel roof shelters a glass-walled exhibition hall, set above a sunken plinth. The building functions as both museum and object – an artwork housing other artworks, and, perhaps, a farewell to his native Germany. In 2022, the building was masterfully restored by British architect and Mies devotee David Chipperfield.

The Gallery had long been plagued with technical problems, including non-existent insulation, near constant glass cracking and condensation and terrible security (exactly the type of complaints Mies liked to brush aside in his lifetime). Now rid of these flaws, and resplendent with magnificent Miesian proportionality, this Berlin landmark is perhaps his finest public work. The Gallery features elements of the earlier, but never-built, design for the headquarters of the Bacardi rum company in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

There is something undeniably, irrepressibly joyful about sitting on a good cantilever chair - the gentle bounce brings a child-like sense of glee to even the most curmudgeonly demeanour. And, after swooning at the preview unveiled during Salone del Mobile earlier this year, we are delighted that Knoll is bringing back one of history’s finest cantilevered seats to market: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat Chair.

The Tugendhat Chair was originally designed in 1929 for the legendary villa of the same name, itself designed and built for the family of the same name in Brno, in the Czech Republic, by Mies and Lilly Reich. The Tugendhat Villa is surely one of the greatest examples of total design. From landscape to architecture to interior to furniture down to every last detail, the villa was more than a project or a commission, it was a world-building exercise for van der Rohe and Reich, and the Tugendhats too, of course (one hopes). Still today, the experience of stepping into the villa and its grounds is utterly transporting. It is a portal to a beautiful, better world.

So it was only fitting that the team at Knoll returned the Tugendhat Chair to its birthplace to shoot the campaign for its resurrection, and with magnificent results. The chair itself was last in production in 1979. The reissued model is carefully faithful to the original - bottoms have not grown so much it seems - today though, nearly every design element can be customised: from the stainless steel finish to a variety of upholstery and leather choices for the cushions to options for chairs with or without arms. We’ll take ours armless with burgundy mohair velvet upholstery please.

As the Tugendhat Chair comes back to market, we asked Jonathan Olivares, Knoll’s senior vice-president of design, to give us his take on rebirthing an icon (and yes, this is one of the only times that dreaded word is truly fitting).

Wallpaper*: Why the decision to reissue the Tugendhat chair at this moment in time?

Jonathan Olivares: Because it's so outstanding and for whatever reason was no longer in production. The chair has always been relevant and will always be... like a Roman bathtub, or throne, it relates to and elevates the human body.

W*: Did you uncover any surprising details or anecdotes in your research into the chair's origins?

JO: There were some small discrepancies between van der Rohe's original drawings and some of the archival pieces that we found. The drawings had equal spacing between the straps and the upper backrest bar, the archival pieces had a larger gap. We ultimately went with the drawings which seemed better proportioned.

W*: Does it sit as happily in our lives today as it did in the 1930s?

JO: A remarkable aspect about van der Rohe's furniture is how rarified and exclusive it was. It was not meant to be affordable or democratic design. The Barcelona chair was made for the king and queen of Spain and the Tugendhat chair was for the wealthy owners of the villa Tugendhat. What is special today is that the designs, while remaining exclusive, are accessible to a wider public.

W*: Have you made any adaptations?

JO: The only adaptation are plastic glides that prevent the chair's steel base from scratching floors. Though purists can easily remove them.

Knoll.com

Mario Pani’s 107th birthday
29 March 2018

Mario Pani played a large part in shaping the design of Mexico City in the twentieth century, with this Doodle - created by his son, artist Knut Pani - paying tribute to them. Pictured is his extensive residential complex, the Tlatelolco Urban Centre in Mexico City, which houses 12,000 apartments in 102 buildings and is characterised by its curved element and triangular tower.

Saloua Raouda Choucair’s 102nd birthday
24 June 2018

Lebanese sculptor Saloua Choucair explored mathematical patterns in her artworks which interlocked together in intricate forms. Her series, ‘poems’, could be dismantled, the movable pieces comparable to the verses of a Sufi poem. Acclaimed throughout her life, at age 97 she was honoured by London’s Tate Modern who put on a retrospective celebrating her long career.

Wilder Penfield’s 127th birthday
26 January 2018

Montreal’s first neurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield’s work in mapping the brain led to new techniques to treat epilepsy. In experiments using electrical probes, he discovered stimulating certain parts of the brain prompted memory cues - such as the smell of burnt toast the Doodle depicts.

Gabriel García Márquez’s 91st Birthday
6 March 2018

Google bring the mystical world of Gabriel García Márquez to life with this Doodle which draws the lush tropical world of Macondo in the Amazonian jungle, the famous setting of his book, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Márquez combined fiction with political activism in a long and distinguished career.

Pi Day
14 March 2018

If you haven’t been marking Pi Day with a slice of pie - why not? The mathematical concept of Pi was recognised in 1988 by Larry Shaw, and represents the ratio between a circle’s circumference to its diameter. This Doodle, baked by Cronut creator Dominique Ansel, pays homage to a mathematical constant which is much more interesting to us when constructed in pastry.

Marga Faulstich’s 103rd birthday
26 June 2018

Next time you grab your shades on the way out the door, spare a thought for German scientist Marga Faulstich who devoted her life to glass chemistry, making your favourite specs possible. She found a way to change a gas directly to a solid without it becoming a liquid, meaning small glass objects could be coated with a vapour, allowing for a glass with anti-reflective coating which blocks UV light.

30th anniversary of the World Wide Web
12 March 2019

‘Mesh’ was Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s working name for the world wide web application, the invention which forever changed life as we know it. Originally a flowchart, it soon became a working model complete with the HTML language, HTTP application and the first Web browser and page editor. Two billion users now use it, hopefully for purposes in addition to reading about Google Doodles.

Erich Ohser’s 115th birthday
18 March 2018

German cartoonist Erich Ohser acted out his political ideology through cartoons and caricatures which depicted his disgust with the National Socialists. Throughout the twentieth century, he balanced his more politically-dangerous pieces with a popular and light-hearted comic strip about a father and son.

Stanisław Moniuszko’s 200th birthday
5 May 2019

Warsaw-based illustrator Gosia Herba paid tribute to Polish musician Stanisław Moniuszko on what would have been his 200th birthday. The director of the Warsaw Opera House, Moniuszko oversaw the production of many of his own works including Halka, which went on to become a classic of Polish culture.

Celebrating Seiichi Miyake
18 March 2019

In 1965, Seiichi Miyake invented tactile blocks to help a friend suffering with their sight. The blocks - one kind which came with dots, the other with bars - let the user know when they were approaching danger, and which way to go. Two years later, they were introduced onto the street in Japan and soon made their way into urban environments around the world, transforming the lives of the visually impaired.

Nowruz
20 March 2019

Google marked the spring equinox and Nowruz, the Persian New Year, with a floral tribute. The festivities, lasting for 13 days, begin on the first day of Farvardin, the first month in the Iranian Hijri calendar.

Parveen Shakir’s 67th birthday
24 November 2019

Pakistani poet Parveen Shakir won Pakistan’s President’s Award for Pride of Performance in 1990 for her Urdu poetry. The first poet to use the word larki (girl) in her work, she subverted male traditions by honestly depicting the female experience.

Nicholas Winton’s 111th birthday
19 May 2020

Sir Nicholas Winton organised the escape of over 600 children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia in the months before the Second World War, a fact he never revealed to anyone. It was only when his wife discovered documents in the attic in 1988 she learnt of his efforts in finding homes, raising money, forging documents and bribing officials, saving the primarily Jewish children from almost certain death.

Celebrating Falafel
18 June 2019

We all love a falafel - why not celebrate it? As India entered high season for the majority of the world’s chickpea crop, Google clearly agreed. Whatever you do with it - Egypt grind down fava beans and fry them, Germany top theirs with sauerkraut - it cannot fail to be delicious.

Tatyana Lioznova 96th birthday
20 July 2020

In a move rare for a female Russian director, Tatyana Lioznova achieved huge success in the twentieth century with her popular programmes, including the 12-part ‘Seventeen Moments of Spring.’ which followed the adventures of Russia’s answer to James Bond, Maxim Isayev.

Julius Lothar Meyer’s 190th birthday
19 August 2020

One of two scientists to discover the periodic law of chemical elements, German chemist Meyer’s periodic tables are ubiquitous in every school in the world.

Barbara Hepworth
25 August 2020

English sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth hammers away at Google in her Doodle which marks the day she arrived in St. Ives in 1939. The seaside town would be instrumental in a career which saw her embrace natural, abstract pieces which were sensitive to the qualities of the raw materials she transformed.

Doodle for Google US winner
23 September 2020

Ten year old Sharon Sara was the winner of 2020’s Doodle for Google competition which invited tens of thousands of students in America to illustrate the prompt: ‘I show kindness by..’ Sara, with her Doodle showing how kindness can be shown through friendship and inclusion, was the lucky recipient of a $30,000 college scholarship, with her school benefitting from a $50,000 technology package.

Dr. Harold Moody
1 September 2020

Charlot Kristensen, a Dublin-based guest artist, depicted Jamaican-born British doctor and racial equality campaigner Dr. Harold Moody for his Doodle, marking the day Moody arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1904. Moody went on to become the founder of the UK’s first civil rights movement after facing racism which denied him work. His kindness is represented by the children in the illustration, signalling the countless deprived young Moody would treat for free.

Google’s 22nd birthday
27 September 2020

Well if you don’t let everyone know it’s your birthday, how will they know to celebrate you? Google marked 22 years of Larry Page and Sergey Brin deciding to rethink the way people interacted with information on the Web with an appropriately restrained lockdown Doodle - never mind, we’re sure the real celebrations were saved for offline.

Professor Udupi Ramachandra Rao’s 89th birthday
10 March 2021

Professor Udupi Ramachandra Rao’s spearheading of India’s satellite programme led to the 1975 launch of India’s first satellite, one of almost two dozen satellites which addressed poverty by increasing communication to rural areas. In 2013, he became the first Indian to be inducted into the Satellite Hall of Fame, an accolade which coincided with the launch of a satellite which orbits Mars today.

Kuzgun Acar’s 93rd birthday
28 February 2021

Kuzgun Acar’s artworks in wire, nails and scrap metals rethought modern sculpture in Turkey in the twentieth century. After learning his skills at ship-dismantling workshops, he went on to produce classic pieces such as ‘Turkey’ - a relief in bronze - as well as producing steel and rubber masks for German theatre play ‘The Caucasian Chalk Office’.

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s 140th birthday
9 November 2020

Guest UK-based artist Jing Zhang paid tribute to one of the smaller creations from British architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Scott worked on many large designs, including the Battersea Power Station and his first project, the Liverpool Cathedral, but it is the red telephone box he designed in 1924 which captures Zhang’s imagination.

Celebrating Johannes Gutenberg
14 April 2021

Lovers of the written word have German craftsman Johannes Gutenberg to thank. His fifteenth century movable type printing press, which replaced the wooden letters of traditional printers with metal type, made books affordable for the first time. Two decades later, his printing press was the largest in Europe, kickstarting a new direction for mass media.

151st anniversary of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
13 April 2021

Founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was established in 1870, quickly collecting a Roman sarcophagus as its first work. Parts of its extensive eclectic collection can be seen in the Doodle, from a Byzante floor mosaic to the armour of Emperor Ferdinand I and a Tetin Sioux beaded dress.

David Warren’s 96th birthday
20 March 2021

Although his first prototype was in red, Australian research scientist Dr. David Warren’s life-saving invention is better known as the ‘black box.’ In the Fifties, he invented an almost indestructible recording device for aircrafts which caught conversations in the cockpit in real time, preventing recurring tragedies.

30th anniversary of Pac-Man
21 May 2010

‘Pac-Man seems like a natural fit for the Google homepage,’ said Marcin Wichary, senior UX designer and developer at Google, in May 2010. ‘They’re both deceptively straightforward, carefully hiding their complexity under the hood. There’s a light-hearted, human touch to both of them.’ The Doodle, which he created with in-house ‘Google Doodler’ (as they have become known)
 Ryan Germick was the first-ever playable doodle, and was on the homepage for 48 hours, because, said Wichary, ‘it’s too cool to keep for just one day’.

The Great Wave of Kanagawa
31 October 2010

It’s an odd thought: a 17th-century Japanese century woodcut going viral. The Great Wave was first circulated the old-fashioned way, via traders and tall ships in the 19th century. Since then, it has inspired Claude Debussy’s orchestral work La Mer, appeared in poetry and prose by Rainer Maria Rilke, and was animated by teamLAB at London gallery Pace. Levi’s and Patagonia used it in marketing campaigns. In 2011, it was preserved in cyberspace as a Google Doodle, and has since been turned into an emoji. Thanks, in no small part to the uncompromising powers of Google Search, it is an image that is as globe-spanning, and enduring, as the ocean itself.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Google and Robert Indiana
14 February 2011

This iconic Doodle (if you can call it that) was created by renowned artist behind ‘LOVE’, and it broke the trend of month upon month of interactive doodles, reverting back to a simpler, stationary symbol. Robert Indiana – poster artist of pop culture – is no stranger to having his work seen in unconventional settings by millions: the US Postal Service carried reproductions of his works on stamps in 1973 as part of its ‘love series’, and he created a work for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign depicting the word ‘HOPE’.

Courtesy of the Morgan Art Foundation / ARS, NY

First Day of Winter by Takashi Murakami
21 June 2011

In the San Francisco Bay Area where Google is based, its typically pretty mild all year round. Craving some seasonal differentiation, it turned to Japanese art superstar Takashi Murakami to ring in the summer and winter solstice in 2011 with a pair of doodles for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, respectively. Google’s Ryan Germick said at the time, ‘The doodles feature some of Murakami’s quirky characters and signature bold colors. It was a great honor to collaborate with Murakami-san and his Kai Kai Kiki team, who create what must be some of our most “kawaii” doodles yet.’

Mies van der Rohe’s 126th birthday
27 March 2012

Along with Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture. To honour what would have been his 126th birthday, Google created this colourful interpretation of his Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology (1956). The glass windows are coloured like Google chars, in a way which also nods to Le Corbusier’s use of primary colours in the windows of Unité d’Habitation in northern France.

Jan Kaplický’s 75th birthday
18 April 2012

Only originally displayed on the Google homepage in Czech Republic, this Doodle depicts neo-futurist Kaplický’s highly controversial Prague National Library (nicknamed ‘the octopus’) which he designed before his death in 2007 at the age of 71. The commission, however, was canceled in 2008. As the octopus never got to stretch its legs, its with love that Google remembers its creator in this digital epitaph. 

Keith Haring’s 54th birthday
4 May 2012

In 2012, one-time subway graffiti artist Keith Haring was presented on a different kind of much-trafficked wall. The late-80s pop artist, whose work currently fills the sky-lit lobby of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, is here copied by in-house Google Doodlers. Widely recognised as creating his own visual language, his famous figures are here bent out of shape, to form a wobbly Google logo. 

150th anniversary of the London Tube map
9 January 2013

Frank Pick’s London Tube Map is a unique accomplishment of graphic innovation, and has become the subject of many artistic endeavours since its creation in 1863 – like Langlands & Bell’s renowned memorial unveiled at Picadilly Circus in 2016. This Google Doodle, a simplified version of the map, rendered in Google’s typical Sans Serif typeface, was only shown in the UK, so we hope its inclusion in this round-up gives the rest of the world pause to acknowledge this beloved symbol of British design prowess. 

Luis Barragán’s 111th birthday
9 March 2013

Even in the midnight hue of the sky, this Doodle transports us to Mexico City. It depicts the brightly coloured pool and pink stable block of Mexican architect Luis Barragán’s Cuadra San Cristobál, an equestrian and estate which is privately owned by the Egerström family since its completion in 1968.

Saul Bass’ 93rd birthday
8 May 2013

Here’s where things get meta. In 2013, Doodler Matthew Cruickshank was given the tricky task of creating a logo celebrating the logo design master Saul Bass. Cruickshank took Bass’ motto – ‘symbolise and summarise’ – to task with a short animated sequence that reimagines Google’s logo in the designers’ unmistakable brand of title credits, set to an upbeat jazz tune composed by David Brubeck. During his 40-year career, Bass, who died in 1996, collaborated with many of the industry’s most influential filmmakers: Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorcese, and Otto Preminger, to name a few. He single-handedly revitalised title sequences in his work for Alfred Hitchcock’s films, devising a revolutionary type of kinetic typography that characterised the openings of classics such as North by Northwest, Vertigo and Psycho.

Kenzo Tange’s 100th birthday
4 September, 2013

Depicting the renowned Structuralist architect stringing up Google bunting across the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo (1961-64), this doodle celebrates the life and work of Kenzo Tange, and was only displayed on the Google homepage in Japan. 

Niki de Saint Phalle’s 84th birthday
29 October 2014

Niki de Saint Phalle’s ‘Nanas’ took over the Google homepage for the French sculptress’s 84th birthday in 2014. Inspired by her pregnant friend, the ‘Nana’ sculptures were de Saint Phalle’s artistic rendition of the everyday woman and became a symbol of femininity. De Saint Phalle described her first ‘Nana’ house as a ‘doll’s house for adults, just big enough to sit and dream in.’

Wassily Kandinsky’s 148th birthday
16 December, 2014

This doodle was inspired by the work of Wassily Kandinsky – the man credited with creating the first ever purely abstract works of art – and was used with special permission of the Estate of Wassily Kandinsky, which is represented by Artist Rights Society. It depicts his pioneering use of expansive coloured masses, cluttered with near-spiritual irreverence, geometry and abstract lines, perhaps best described by The Rider, (1911). In typical Kandinksy fashion, it barely says ‘Google’ at all. 

Lygia Clark’s 95th birthday
23 October, 2015

Famed Brazilian painter, sculptor and teacher, Lygia Clark co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement, which sought to change art from a passive viewing experience to an engaging interaction. Her art pieces, specifically the ‘bichos’, were designed to be modified, re-positioned and folded into new configurations by participants – the participant here being Google. The logo has been stripped of its primary colours, and rendered in greyscale shades favoured by Clark, each letter folding in on itself like origami. These ‘critters’ represent Clark’s early attempts to bridge the gap between artist and viewer, alongside Google’s attempts to bridge the gap between searcher and host.

121st anniversary of the first published timetable in Japan
5 October, 2015

One of the seemingly obscure commemorative Doodles – the 121st anniversary of the publication of the first Japanese railway timetable – is actually more all-encompassing than it looks. It represents, says Google, ‘the advent of time consciousness, and the beginning of efficient and reliable mass transit’. That told us. Google continues: ‘To celebrate this achievement, we decided to create our own, unique schedule with invented names, destinations and times in homage to the humble train timetable. We wanted to reference as many traditional design elements, symbols and typographic styles as possible. To help out, we gathered as many "timetable geeks" as we could find in our Tokyo office. Our team of experts had many brainstorming sessions and came up with more ideas than we could possibly include in the final artwork.’

Yps Magazine’s 40th anniversary
13 October, 2015

Germany’s Yps Magazine published its first comic in 1985. Filled with tales of mystery, peril, and adventure, many would agree that the most irresistible aspect of the slim publication was the toy that came with it, and each subsequent edition. They ranged from the simple (spinning tops) to the sophisticated (kits to build functioning radios), and often the slightly bizarre (a package of Brine Shrimp eggs that young readers were encouraged to hatch and grow themselves). Artist Nate Swinehart endeavoured to recapture this sense of anticipation and mystery with a Doodle that changes each time you see it.

The 42nd Anniversary of Rio–Niterói Bridge opening
4 March, 2016

Brazil’s Rio–Niterói Bridge exemplifies the ingenuity of the human spirit – as captured by guest Doodler Patrick Leger, who crafted a recreation of the bridge on the bay with the Brazilian coast visible in the background, and shadowy Google lettering stretching out across the water. The structure met with great international praise when it opened in 1974 as the second-longest bridge in the world, spanning the vast Guanabara Bay. Its greatest accomplishment is connection. Carrying over 100,000 passengers daily, it unites Nieterói and Rio de Janeiro, cities with populations of 487,000 and 6.5 million respectively.

Juno Reaches Jupiter
5 July, 2016

On 5 July 2016, a NASA satellite built like a tank settled into polar orbit around Jupiter, the mysterious gas giant two doors down from Earth. Juno’s five–year, 500–million–mile journey will culminate in a treasure trove of new pictures and measurements taken by its nine instruments. The latest Juno images were delivered back down to earth successfully on February 7, 2018. Google celebrated this incredible moment of human achievement the best way they new how: with Space Invadors references. The emoji-tastic GIF captures the moment mission control received news Juno had entered orbit.

80th anniversary of the opening of the Moscow Metro
May 15, 2015

Matt Cruickshank’s Doodle celebrates the railway that shaped a city. The ‘Google doodler’ drew inspiration from vintage russian posters. He started with the map in the metro’s current lines colours and distinctive radial-circle structure but decided to combine the old with the new and ended up using sepia-toned fashion of a vintage Russian poster. He also added a classic train with ‘80’ on the front to pay homage to the anniversary.

Celebrating Zaha Hadid
31 May, 2017

The Heydar Aliyev Center, depicted behind a cartoon-style portrait of the late, great Zaha Hadid, sets itself in contrast to the block-like structures that surround it in Baku, Azerbaijan. The architects’ signature fluid style is captured in the endlessly curving lines of the drawing, and the almost-unreadable Google typeface. At the same time, this cultural centre takes inspiration from historic Islamic designs found in calligraphy and geometric patterns to create something entirely new. The building takes an open form to invite the public into its space. The centre has played host to modern art by Andy Warhol and Tony Cragg, and world-class performances from Kitaro and Alessandro Safina.

Meret Oppenheim’s 104th birthday
6 October, 2017

Created by guest artist Tina Berning, this Doodle celebrates Meret Oppenheim on what would have been her 104th birthday. The Doodle nods to one of her most known works, ’Object’ – a famously fur-covered bracelet which is in the Gems and Ladders collection – and honors the surrealist tradition of combining unexpected elements to create something new.

Celebrating the Studio for Electronic Music
18 October, 2017

Google felt the beat as it celebrated the 66th anniversary of the Studio for Electronic Music with this neon Doodle, by Berlin-based illustrator Henning Wagenbreth. It celebrates the noisy diversity of thought and imagination that built this studio, which was to transform the possibilities of music. Known as the first modern music studio, it became a haven for innovative musicians and producers from its base at the West German Broadcasting facility in Cologne, to the rest of the world.

Hokiichi Hanawa’s 271st birthday
23 June, 2017

When Helen Keller visited the memorial house of Hanawa Hokiichi in 1937, she said of the revered scholar, ‘I believe that his name would pass down from generation to generation like a stream of water.’ This Doodle celebates the intergenerational legacy of the thinker. Like a river originating from humble beginnings in Tokyo in 1746, his influence has stretched through law, politics, economics, history, and medicine.

Virginia Woolf’s 136th birthday
25 January 2018

Subject of many ponderous, self-absorbed English Literature dissertations (mine included), and subject of a new exhibition at Tate St Ives, Virginia Woolf is an icon of Modernist literature, and has sparked two centuries of artistic renderings. This year, a Google Doodle was penned by London-based illustrator Louise Pomeroy. It salutes with grace and symbolism Woolf’s minimalist style. Not tonally disimilar to the bust found outside her Bloomsbury residence, the portrait is surrounded by falling autumn leaves (a frequent visual theme in her work). In Woolf’s words: ‘
The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labor, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore.’

Art, architecture and design students at Indiana University are now able to pursue their disciplines within the newly opened Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, which owes its design to none other than modernist architecture maestro Mies van der Rohe. The building, which has been carefully adapted for contemporary use by Thomas Phifer and Partners, was designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1952 for the Bloomington campus, but never realised. It was originally commissioned for the university’s chapter of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity, but subsequently abandoned and then forgotten. The design only re-emerged in 2013 when Sidney Eskenazi, a former member of the chapter, revealed its existence to the university’s then-president and a trail of rediscovery began.

The road led Indiana University to uncover documentation of Mies van der Rohe’s design and the project, in the archives of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 2019, the university announced that it would finally turn the two-storey, 100,000 sq ft building into a reality, with a $20m donation from Sidney and Lois Eskenazi to cover part of the construction costs. 

Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design: a Miesian vision now realised

In its finished form, the new Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design elegantly places thin panels of white-painted steel with expansive glass panes, each 10ft square, next to grey limestone and epoxy terrazzo. Floor-to-ceiling windows encase the entire second storey of the 60ft-wide and 140ft-long building, giving it a feeling of transparency that’s further enhanced by its elevation above the ground plane, while the lower floor is mostly open air.

The building houses lecture, workshop, collaborative and office spaces, with a central, open-air atrium bringing an added lightness to its interior. With visible architectural connections made to Mies van der Rohe’s other contemporaneous creations, such as the Edith Farnsworth House and early concepts for the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Eskenazi School is a true treasure to behold.

‘We are thrilled to mark the opening of the Mies Building, which will enable faculty and students of all our school’s programmes to come together and collaborate,’ says Peg Faimon, the school’s dean. ‘Just as important, this magnificent building shows who we are, representing the excellence to which we are committed. There can be no greater inspiration for us than to learn and work in a masterpiece by this titan of 20th-century architecture. Let us hope that it will be a lasting monument to the power of collaborations and connections of all kinds – artistic, creative, intellectual and, above all, human.’

In celebration of its opening, the school will host a public open house on 8 April 2022. Thomas Phifer and Partners is also responsible for the university’s Ferguson International Center, which is currently under construction across the street from the Eskenazi School.

INFORMATION

thomasphifer.com

The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library in Washington DC is the only building of its typology designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; and one of the last by the modernist master, completed posthumously in 1972. Mecanoo, with local partner OTJ Architects, recently completed a modernisation of the US capital's landmark, and photographer Paul Clemence documented the refresh, offering a virtual tour of the reopened building.

Interventions included reworking the main entrance and circulation cores to increase transparency and capacity; designating the centrally placed Great Hall as a space for events to become the library's heart; and removing columns and partitions on upper floors to create the flowing and flexible Upper Great Halls. 

A new green rooftop terrace was added, as well as a ground level cafe. The reading rooms were refreshed and key areas for children and teens were expanded. As a result of the renovations, the Mies van der Rohe-designed library's public space increased by 60 percent. Now, the structure, which was declared a historic landmark in 2007, can be more open and cater to more visitors. 

Delft-based Mecanoo are experts in cultural institutions and libraries; they count the Library of Birmingham and the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts in Taiwan under the belt. Here, they emphasised openness, movement and communal areas, bringing the community to the heart of their design. 

‘The vision for the MLK Library revolves around respect for the original architecture while updating the building to a modern library that reflects a focus on people, celebrating the exchange of knowledge, ideas and culture,' say the architects.

INFORMATION

mecanoo.nl

Following in the footsteps of Ai Weiwei, Enric MIralles and Ryue Nishizawa, Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis is the latest in a short line of artists with permission to temporarily alter the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona. Her exhibition, presented with Side Gallery and titled No Fear of Glass, includes five new works installed at the iconic architectural structure, and is a beautiful update on Mies’ intention for the space as ‘an ideal zone of tranquillity.’

The Barcelona Pavilion embodies the spirit of 20th-century modern architecture and was first built in 1929. Intended as a reception space for the Barcelona International Exhibition, it was designed to be mostly bare: architecture that was a conduit for the views beyond, a continuous space; blurring inside and outside, containing only the famous (specifically designed) Barcelona chairs and a single sculpture. Since its reconstruction in the 1980s has been a place of pilgrimage for architects from all over the globe.

An intimidating commission, perhaps, Marcelis is an apt choice to take it on. As a starting point, she takes the request made to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to ‘not use too much glass’ in his construction, and makes the material central to her new pieces. She tests it and pushes it to its limits just as Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich did with the other materials in their palette nearly a century ago to test their design ideals.

The result is a series of pieces that seem to be grown and extruded from the structure itself; in glass, travertine and chrome. Two large chaise longues see the travertine floor extended to form a base, which is then sliced by a singular sheet of curved glass. These sculptural yet functional furniture pieces are immediately futuristic, somehow timeless, and extremely inviting.

In response to the eight chrome columns which provide the structural support for pavilion’s roof, Marcelis has also introduced a ninth. In mirrored-glass her vertical structure functions as a light and is placed in line with the existing columns, blending in seamlessly, and adding a new poetic dimension to the space.

The work of Marcelis defies fixed definitions, says Ippolito Pestellini, partner at OMA/AMO and a contributor to an upcoming book that will document the exhibition. ‘For years she has been working tirelessly to push the limits of materials, extending their qualities and performance. What at first glance looks like a purely aesthetic exercise is actually the output of a scientific and systematic research into production processes. The act of design in her practice becomes a different story, one where light, colour, reflection, strength and curvature are the driving categories of a research that is not limited to form and geometry, and that transcends the scale of objects as we know it.’

The final piece in the series can be found in the water pond outside: a curved glass fountain that appears to bend the water upwards from the ground, and letting it spill over and back down. Subtle, yet compelling, each of Marcelis’ interventions invite a fresh look at this seemingly untouchable space. Each, in their own way, actually improving it with a 21st century perspective on the modern way.

Curator Maria Cristina Didero also describes Sabine Marcelis’ approach as being unique and highly recognisable: ‘Her design is sharp, severe and at the same time syrupy, honeyed - you might even want to smell or bite her pieces of furniture, which are always extraordinary.’ Consider it a warning. But if you do want to lick it, it’s surely a sign of good taste.

INFORMATION

Installation view of Fountain. Photography: José Hevia

ADDRESS

Av. Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 7
08038
Barcelona

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For many years, McCormick House was a jewel hidden in plain sight, incorporated almost invisibly into the Elmhurst Art Museum, connected to the main building by a 15 ft corridor constructed in 1997. The museum's latest exhibition, ‘McCormick House – Past, Present, Future', stages the entire house as a private single-family home with mid-century modern furnishings.

The exhibition, curated by interior architect Robert Kleinschmidt, expands on an installation from 2018, when Kleinschmidt staged the house’s Children’s Wing with period décor. It also represents a continuation of an ongoing project launched in 2017 to restore the house to something approaching the original design by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, including removing the corridor.    

‘Rob’s exhibition will help our guests understand its domestic scale through period furniture and illustrate its history as a residence,' says John McKinnon, the museum's executive director.

McCormick House is comprised of two modular units measuring 2000 sq ft, and was constructed as a prototype for mass-produced modular homes to be located in the western suburbs of Chicago. However, the innovative structures proposed by co-developers Robert Hall McCormick III and Herbert S. Greenwald failed to attract a sufficient number of buyers, and construction never began.

McCormick and his wife, poet Isabella Gardner, lived in the home from 1952 to 1959. In 1961, Arthur and Marilyn Sladek moved in with their family and remained there until 1963, when Ray and Mary Ann Fick moved in till 1991. The house was left empty until 1994, when it was moved to its present location adjacent to the museum, which had purchased the house and used it as its administrative offices from 1997 to 2015.

Highlights from the exhibition include weekly tours on Sunday afternoons from 15 September – one of the guides is a former resident of the house. A lecture, ‘Preserving the Modern Home' by architectural historian Susan Benjamin, is scheduled for 5 October and a panel discussion, ‘Preserving Chicago’s Glass Houses', is scheduled on 26 October; both offer context and celebrate Chicago's lasting architectural legacy.

INFORMATION
elmhurstartmuseum.org

‘Living together’ and ‘common space’ were the tangible common threads at the finalists’ event for the EU40 Mies Award 2019, an architecture prize that is presented every two years.

Out of the nearly 400 projects put forward, which are selected by official architecture associations and experts from 38 countries, only 40 are shortlisted and a handful become finalists. In a fin de siècle hall in Barcelona, a few steps from Mies van der Rohe’s groundbreaking German Pavilion, six different studios presented what the jury considers to be some of the best of contemporary European architecture.

It’s difficult to disagree with their choices. Plaza Skanderbeg, by 51N4E, has banished cars from the centre of Tirana and provided the city with a vast meeting space with forests, water and movable seats made for sharing. In Berlin, the ziggurat-shaped Lobe Block by Brandlhuber + Emde almost forces the idea of co-living and mixed use through its bifurcated staircase, large terraces and living/working spaces that stagger in size over the levels.

Architecten de Vylder Vinck Taillieu put forward architecture that heals with PC Caritas, a defunct psychiatric facility the studio transformed into a serene space for patients and carers with greenhouses and sheltered terraces. The French BAST studio took the Emerging Architect prize for the addition of an ethereal, transparent refectory to a public school in rural France, a project they described as using ‘minimal gestures for maximal effectiveness.’

The winner of the EU40 Mies Award 2019 also dropped in France for Lacaton & Vassal’s astonishing transformation of a vast 1960s block of 530 public housing dwellings in Bordeaux. The project, which will become a benchmark in how to make out-dated social housing more liveable, transformed the lives of the inhabitants inside (who were previously consulted before work began) with the addition of an second façade whose void added 53 per cent of living space in the form of an enclosed terrace with amazing views.

‘I propose a new definition of urbanism and architecture,’ said Anne Lacaton, at the close of her presentation, which received a standing ovation. ‘We need to create a discipline for the fusion of the inside and outside,’ she explained, before thanking Mr and Mrs van der Rohe, for the award.

The Wallpaper* edit of the 40 shortlisted projects...

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the EU Mies Award website

David Chipperfield’s office is pretty busy in the landmark department at present. Hot on the heels of the completion of a new entrance and accessories hall for the historic Selfridges building in Duke Street, London and with their new James-Simon-Galerie in its final stages on Berlin’s Museum Island, they have also just completed the first stage structural restoration of one of Berlin’s biggest landmark buildings: Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie.

The Neue Nationalgalerie is Mies’ only post-war building in Europe. Built between 1965 and 1968, its black, low-lying, minimalist steel and glass form – a sort of low-rise high rise – is one of the world’s most significant and recognisable 20th-century architectural structures. Chipperfield was a shoo-in for the restoration of this listed monument – which badly needed updating after 50 years of traffic and hosting the city’s modern art collection. His track record in the sensitive and sensational renovation and partial rebuild of the 19th-century Neues Museum, which is also owned by the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, had already won him the city’s trust when it comes to their most treasured architectural heirlooms.

But unlike the Neues Museum – which was badly bomb-damaged during the Second World War – the restoration of the Neue Nationalgalerie requires as little visible interference as possible. The five-year project involves upgrading the building to ‘current museum standards', which means dismantling and restoring pretty much all of the building’s components before precisely reinstalling them as well as ‘updating air-conditioning, lighting, security, and visitors’ facilities, including cloakroom, café and museum shop, improving disabled access and art handling'.

When it is fully completed the building needs to look as if the original has barely been touched. In the words of the client: ‘The refurbishment and modernisation aims for maximum preservation of the existing fabric, with minimum visual compromise to the building’s original appearance.' What this means in practice is faithful restoration combined with the introduction of essential and unavoidable new features that are ‘are nevertheless discreetly legible as contemporary elements' in a process of ‘respectful repair'.

The core structural elements are now complete. The next stage is to concentrate on the interior, including the huge underground part of the gallery (the total floor area is 13,900 sq m). The expected completion date is 2020, which can’t come soon enough: five years without being able to marvel at the sunset through this extraordinarily massive, yet floating building when you pass by on a winter evening seems a long time to wait. But, as the shocking and culturally devastating example of the fire that recently gutted the National Museum of Brazil so painfully showed, looking after our museums is an essential responsibility and well worth the investment and the inconvenience.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of David Chipperfield Architects

The Real foundation’s head Jack Self and Yulia Rudenko’s newest book is the stuff architecture enthusiasts’ dreams are made of. Produced by the foundation and born out of meticulous research, painstaking restoration and a hefty dose of passion for modernist architecture, ‘Mies in London’ tells the story of Mies van der Rohe’s only UK design, Mansion House Square.

‘Mies in London is REAL’s longest-running and most complex project to date, taking three years in as many continents’, explains Self. ‘No expense was spared in making one of the most comprehensive projects about any of Mies’ works.’

Beautifully designed by OK-RM, the luxurious, tactile tome includes 160 pages of previously unseen material on the project, such as dates and timelines, drawings, photographs and sketches. The wealth of images has been collected from a range of institutions, such as the RIBA, the CCA and Drawing Matter, as well as private collections, making this book a truly collectible item, with a focus on facts and information, rather than academic essays.

Mansion House Square was commissioned in 1962 by Lord Peter Palumbo. The commercial tower was to be set within the City of London but quickly became the subject of controversy which unfolded during the following years, mostly due to, says Self, a shift in public opinion against modernist architecture at the time. The project was finally abandoned in 1984 through City Inquiry, even though it was designed by one of the greatest architects of the 20th century.

Accompanying the book is a limited edition series of travertine ashtrays and bronze door handle paperweights, based on Mies’s original designs for the project. The Real foundation collaborated with architectural product manufacturer Ize on the latter.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the publication's website

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’.

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.

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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After a year of design work and preparation, Italian menswear brand Brioni has opened the doors to its new David Chipperfield-designed store on Paris’ label-laden Rue Saint-Honoré.

Conceived as both a ‘gallery of clothes’ and a ‘destination point’, David Chipperfield Architects Milan set out to create a store concept that intertwines Brioni’s Roman roots and tailoring traditions with a new vision for its future set out by newly-appointed creative director Justin O’Shea. Following his appointment in April, O’Shea wasted no time in making his mark by revamping Brioni’s historical logo with a gothic-style font and hiring Metallica to star in the A/W 2016 ad campaign.

Architecturally, this fusion of past and present translates into classic materials such as grey travertine floors and walls – a reference to ancient Rome – being placed alongside more experimental elements such as a series of transparent metal mesh partitions and fixtures that generate a sensation of openness.

Spread across two floors linked by a giant stage-like staircase, the studio has created three zones within the 590 sq m space – the main store space, the VIP area and the changing rooms – all of which are defined by the change of experience and ritual rather than by the change of materials. ‘The idea behind the store display furnishing is that it should be adaptable and flexible, positioned in such a way that the store architecture becomes the background of the products,’ explain the architects, citing Mies van der Rohe as a key influence.

O’Shea affectionately describes the new concept as ‘a cool mix between branding, design and retail… and definitely one of the most beautiful stores I have ever seen.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Brioni website

Photography: © Kristen Pelou

ADDRESS

Brioni
370 Rue Saint Honoré
75001

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Following a tete-a-tete with the building’s operators over prospective architectural renovations and interior alterations, the Four Season’s owners – Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder – made the difficult decision to close shop and relocate. The former Restaurant’s midcentury wares have been auctioned in a huge sale at Wright. Pictured: Emil Antonucci’s seminal Four Seasons sign sold for $120,000, despite a $5,000–$7,000 estimation

It was back in June that we reported the news that the Philip Johnson-designed Four Seasons Restaurant – a 'pharaonic temple to modernism' located in the Seagram Building, wrote Aaron Peasley – was due to shutter. Following a tete-a-tete with the building's operators over prospective architectural renovations and interior alterations, the owners – Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder – made the difficult decision to close shop and relocate.

Though the Four Seasons name and reputation will live on, its historic environs are set to become a fond memory. Not so the furnishings and tableware though, which have been sold by Chicago-based auction house Wright. The historic offering – a startling 863 separate lots – fetched, collectively, over $4 million.

Beginning with Emil Antonucci's seminal Four Seasons sign – a sight to moisten the eye of many who regularly swept into the hushed, urbane interior; a sentiment reflected in the $120,000 sale price, despite a $5,000–$7,000 estimation – the auction saw a veritable feast of furniture, glassware, crockery, plant pots and restaurant apparatus pass hands; some a little scuffed, but talismanic all.

These included a number of bar stools designed by Mies van der Rohe and architect Philip Johnson; 'Tulip' tables and stools, designed by Eero Saarinen and formally used in the Grill Room bar; a bevy of Philip Johnson Associates Grill Room banquettes and van der Rohe 'Brno' chairs and 'Barcelona' lobby loungers; Hans J Wegner's Grill Room mezzanine armchairs; and a quite incredible amount of Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable drinking glasses, varied tableware, caviar bowls, oyster dishes, cooking pans, serving carts and wine coolers. (Not to mention the kitchen's anonymously-designed cotton candy machine, check holders and more ash trays than even a masochistic chain smoker could shake a stick at.)

With that, the Four Seasons Restaurant's identity and history – so evocative of time and place – is dissipated, but hopefully among the former patrons that loved it most. Niccolini and von Bidder may be moving further up Park Avenue – in a setting designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld – but the Four Seasons' spiritual home will forever be at number 375.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Wright website

It’s just past noon on a late spring day at The Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. Co-owner Julian Niccolini, dressed in polished Oxfords and one of his many custom-made Thom Browne suits, examines the tables allocated for the all-important lunch reservations. Preternaturally calm waitstaff smooth over the crisp linen tablecloths as Alex von Bidder, Niccolini’s long-time business partner, calmly greets a handful of early guests as they ascend the wide travertine staircase. With the power hour unfolding with a kind of military grace, it’s almost impossible to imagine that this bastion of the New York dining scene will close its doors in just a few weeks. 'Some of us remain in a kind of denial,' says Niccolini, who began working at the restaurant in 1977, four years after arriving in the US. 'I’ve basically grown up within these walls, and I’ve seen the restaurant through many different chapters of New York history.'

From its inception, The Four Seasons Restaurant was a restaurant of singular ambition. A pair of vast rooms at the base of Mies van der Rohe’s Manhattan masterpiece, the 38-storey Seagram Building, the restaurant opened in 1959. Like the building itself, the restaurant’s construction was overseen by Seagram owner Samuel Bronfman and his architect daughter Phyllis Lambert, who lavished fastidious attention on every detail, birthing a truly modern Gesamtkunstwerk.

In keeping with the world’s foremost International Style building, the restaurant marries rectilinear clarity with an exquisite material palette. When an exhausted Mies retreated to Chicago, Philip Johnson, who would one day be considered the ‘dean’ of American architecture, was charged with designing the restaurant’s interior.

Faced with the scale of a small European train station, Johnson divided the space into two large dining rooms. In the Grill Room, he added magisterial 20ft-high panels of French walnut and installed a square bar beneath a Richard Lippold sculpture of hanging bronze tubes. For the somewhat more romantic Pool Room, a raised pool of white Carrara marble was installed as a visual anchor. Connecting the two spaces is a long, thin travertine-clad passageway known as Picasso Alley because it housed a 19ft x 20ft Picasso curtain created in 1919.

Johnson and Lambert’s design dream team also included lighting expert Richard Kelly; industrial designers L. Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable; and landscape architect Karl Linn. The project’s final budget amounted to the then-unprecedented sum of $4.5m, said to be more than the cost of the entire Guggenheim Museum.

Here, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, was a new kind of establishment. Undeniably glamorous, but never gauche or glitzy, the restaurant was a paean to power itself, and the handsome travertine and glass space became the quintessential backdrop for the city’s post-war ambitions and dizzily status-conscious denizens. Heads of state, visiting royalty, newly minted yuppies and titans of industry all parked up to discuss business and seal deals.

Thankfully, the tables were far enough apart to facilitate dealmaking yet still allow for just a soupçon of eavesdropping (to be breathlessly reported by Page Six), while generous sightlines facilitated discreet stargazing. With a setting that never eclipsed its supernova clientele, The Four Seasons Restaurant always seemed to be the social arena of the moment. In 1962, the newly inaugurated President Kennedy celebrated his 45th birthday party in one of the restaurant’s private rooms, hours before Marilyn Monroe’s famous raspy serenade. In the 1980s, it was Chanel power suits, Ivana Trump and naked romps in the marble pool. The 1990s saw it become the de facto Condé Nast canteen (where US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, a regular diner, was once served a dead raccoon by a PETA protester).

'Everybody has eaten here,' says Niccolini, suggesting it’s easier to name the celebrities who have not dined here ('We’ve fed every president except Richard Nixon'). In 1979, Esquire coined the term 'power lunch to describe the restaurant’s sui generis blend of power and status. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis christened the Grill Room 'the cathedral.'

But it couldn’t last. In recent years, this seat of 20th century might has become the object of much public combat, with von Bidder and Niccolini pitted against Aby Rosen, the Seagram Building’s owner. Rosen has also clashed with preservationists and Lambert, the restaurant’s visionary creator, by pushing for the removal of the Picasso curtain (which was painted for the ballet Le Tricorne and is now installed in the New-York Historical Society) and proposing structural changes to its landmark protected interiors. Unable to reach a new lease agreement, the owners decided to shutter the restaurant and reopen it elsewhere under the same name. Nevertheless, The Four Seasons Restaurant, as we know it, will cease to exist.

While most of the building’s iconic interior elements cannot be altered, its contents are due to be sold in a sale conducted by Chicago-based auction house Wright. 'The Four Seasons is the epitome of Power New York,' says founder Richard Wright. 'Having a drink at the bar, where I always felt obligated to order a martini, felt impossibly urbane. The richness of the interior, the hushed environment and the hypnotic ripple of the metal window treatments refute the idea of modernism being cold and clinical. The space elevates and inspires, which is why it has played a part in the important life moments of so many.'

For those who’ve celebrated a milestone at the restaurant or simply enjoyed a business lunch, its rich furnishings and tableware possess both intrinsic and talismanic power. 'It reminds me of when the Yankees relocated and the stadium’s contents were sold to the fans,’ says Niccolini. 'Our guests are desperate to own a piece of the city’s culinary and social history.'

Among the lots up for auction are the Grill Room’s five custom-built Knoll banquettes, the domain of the restaurant’s A-list habitués. 'Each day, Philip Johnson would take his lunch right here and order a single negroni,' says Niccolini, pointing out the Grill Room’s southernmost banquette. Other pieces for sale include upholstered 'Brno' chairs, originally designed for Mies’ Villa Tugendhat in Brno in the Czech Republic; polished bronze-topped 'Tulip' tables by Eero Saarinen from the bar area; Hans Wegner chairs from the Grill Room’s mezzanine, including the chair that JFK sat on during his birthday dinner; and the sofas that Johnson designed specifically for waiting guests.

'The Bronfman family and Phyllis Lambert, in particular, were like the Medicis of their time,' says Niccolini, listing the sheer number of items that were commissioned for the restaurant by its founders, determined to cast off the tradition-bound hauteur that was then standard in predominantly French fine dining restaurants. The Huxtables’ table and cookware, which features in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, also reflects this spirit of strident modernity.

Depending on who you ask, this pharaonic temple to modernism – with its expensive, indistinct food, expansive spaces and muffled ambience – is either completely démodé or more relevant than ever. What’s certain is that it won’t remain the same after the last service on 16 July, four days shy of its 57th birthday. 'This all will come to an end,' says Niccolini with a sanguine shrug. With help from advisers, including architectural critic Paul Goldberger, the owners have engaged a world-class architect to create a new iteration of The Four Seasons Restaurant. 'Again, the architecture will come first,' stresses Niccolini, almost conceding that the food has always been beside the point. 'People don’t go to restaurants just to eat; it’s a place for magic, tremendous architecture and beauty. We could never recreate this, but we will do something special.'

As originally featured in the July 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*208)

INFORMATION
The Four Seasons auction will take place on 26 July. For more information visit the Wright auction house website

Photography: François Dischinger. Producer: Michael Reynolds

ADDRESS

99 East 52 Street, New York

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It’s been 30 years since the recreation of Mies van der Rohe's feted Barcelona Pavilion. To commemorate its anniversary, Fundació Mies van der Rohe, the nonprofit organisation that manages the property, has launched an exciting program of events.

Designed in 1929 for the Barcelona International Exhibition, the beautifully refined glass, steel and marble structure was quickly disassembled in 1930. Half a century passed with only photographs and drawings for reference; but though long gone, the structure was not forgotten, fondly remembered by the world as a shining example of van der Rohe’s architectural genius and 20th-century modernism. Work began in 1983 to reconstruct the iconic building on its original site, with the Pavilion finally reaching completion in 1986.

The opening of the anniversary celebrations, attended by the Mayoress of Barcelona and members of the team responsible for the Pavilion’s reconstruction, will commence with the unveiling of an artistic reinterpretation of the columns that were situated next to the 1929 original, designed by Catalan modernist Josep Puig i Cadafalch. ‘Fear of Columns’, an open competition, called for proposals to envision a temporary reinterpretation of the original context, to be located adjacent to the new Pavilion.

From 121 entries, the panel of judges unanimously opted for Spanish architect Luis Martínez Santa-María’s submission as the winner, with a project titled ‘I don’t want to change the world. I only want to express it’ – named after a quote from van der Rohe himself.

The installation, consisting of eight tall columns, will be constructed from a number of sheet steel drums retrieved from chemical waste cemeteries and welded together. The project, described by Santa-María as ‘objets d’art’, was cited by the judging panel as being contemporary and compelling due to its contrast to the pavilion's horizontal form.

The program of events will continue with the Pavilion remaining open to the public over five days, providing neighbours, citizens and travelers with the opportunity to visit. On 16 June, Tristán Perich will unveil his three-day long installation Microtonal Wall, consisting of 1,500 loudspeakers on a 7.5m aluminium panel, which will fill the Pavilion's interior with a range of sounds.

In the month of October, the Pavilion will host a three-day symposium covering a wide range of topics related to van der Rohe, modern architecture and its close relationship to the Bauhaus school and the Weimar Republic.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Fundació Mies van der Rohe’s website

ADDRESS

Av. de Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia 7
08038 Barcelona

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To seamlessly merge new contemporary interiors with the older shell of an architecture classic, requires skill and a context-sensitive touch. Found within Mies van der Rohe’s iconic 860-880 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, this apartment is a prime example of such an approach, overseen by Vladimir Radutny and Fanny Hothan of Vladimir Radutny Architects. The 750 sq ft Unit3E has just received a modern makeover, courtesy of Radutny, who saught to pay homage to the timeless structure and its lakeside location through his design.

The Lake Shore Drive buildings, designed by Mies van der Rohe, were erected between 1949-1951, and form a set of the American city's most well known architectural landmarks. This pair of towers helped redefine high rise living for post-war inner city Chicago.

Situated on one of the lower floors of this 26 level tower, the apartment in question offers clean, unobstructed views of the nearby Lake Michigan. Maintaining this view, while being respectful the Mies van der Rohe's original design, was one of the architect's key concerns during this residential rehaul. In order to open up the space to the vistas, the architect chose to completely gut the interior. He opted to work with a fairly open plan living scenario, placing just a frosted glass pane to separate the living and sleeping areas. His changes were inspired by a set of original Mies van der Rohe's plans for the building, which were never implemented. 

Radutny wanted to complement the building’s external envelope with his choice of materials, so the interior was themed around an austere and neutral colourway with highlights in white oak. The pallette includes light colours and lots of transparency, while the furniture was planned to appear almost levitating.

The architect's overall aim was to guide the inhabitant's eyes past the apartment itself, and out towards the horizon and surrounding scenery. ‘In a way our intent was to create a backdrop for the existing exterior condition', says Radutny. 'It’s a truly open living space that absorbs its city context’.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Vladimir Radutny Architects’ website

Photography: Bill Zbaren

We may all know our Le Corbusier from our Mies van der Rohe, but when it comes to modernist masterpieces in the African continent, there is an impressive body of work from that era that often gets unfairly overlooked. The Graham Foundation is set to change this, with its new exhibition, 'Architecture of Independence: African Modernism', opening today in its handsome Chicago townhouse base. 

The architecture exhibition focuses on the international style's journey through sub-Saharan Africa, especially looking into the 1960s and 1970s. Today the continent has a rich – and complex – history and legacy of modern buildings, explain the organizers. Most architects that helped build this heritage were from Europe, while only a handful of them were local, including Senegalese architects Cheikh N'Gom and Pierre Goudiaby Atepa. 

Exploring the theme using some 80 buildings from different countries and especially commissioned photography by Iwan Baan and Alexia Webster, this exhibition travels through Ghana, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, and Zambia. Many of these young nations gained their independence in the 1960s, calling upon the teachings of modernist architecture to help them express their brand new identities. 

Works span from sports facilities, offices and administrative structures, to cultural buildings, banks, housing and convention centers; some are in use, some have been adapted and some remain currently unused. These are depicted through a striking over-700 photographs as well as archival material, including historic photos, newspaper clippings, postcards, videos, architectural plans, and sketches.

This is a landmark show for the foundation, casting the net far and wide into what organizers describe as 'the most compelling yet under-studied examples of 1960s and 1970s architecture worldwide'. 

This exhibition is based on the book project African Modernism: Architecture of Independence by architect Manuel Herz, created in cooperation with the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany.

INFORMATION

For more information on the Graham Foundation visit the website

’Architecture of Independence: African Modernism’ is on show from 29th January to 9th April 2016

ADDRESS

The Graham Foundation
Madlener House
4 West Burton Place
Chicago, Illinois 60610
USA

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Hauser & Wirth’s outpost in Zurich has undergone a domestic reimagining, swapping its usual white cube format for a homely salon in which to explore artworks, books and prints during winter. Entitled ‘Salon d’Hiver’, the show draws inspiration from Hauser & Wirth’s publishing arm as well as its more recent initiative focusing on prints, editions and multiples.

Art objects and books by the likes of Dieter Roth, Louise Bourgeois, Martin Creed and Subodh Gupta are peppered throughout the gallery, nestled amongst furniture and other curios in an immersive environment conceived to feel like a home.

Wallpapers created by the gallery’s stable of artists serve as a brilliant backdrop to the exhibition – think Paul McCarthy’s butt plug-wielding, chocolate Santa Clauses; kaleidoscopic limbs by Pipilotti Rist; and a vibrant floral design by Caro Nieder. The gallery partnered with an antique furniture dealer to furnish the space, showcasing a Mies van der Rohe daybed amongst the art.

A comprehensive events programme is planned in tandem with ‘Salon d’Hiver’. The gallery has already hosted a children’s tea part as well as a duet of music evenings, with Martin Creed’s band and Allan Kaprow’s musical works taking the spotlight.

Visitors will be rewarded by repeat trips to the Swiss gallery, with new artworks set to regularly be installed throughout the duration of the exhibition. The current Christmas incarnation of the space will soon be rehung with a fresh selection of works, to creating an experience akin to a house being redecorated. We already feel at home.

INFORMATION

’Salon d’Hiver: Books - Prints - Multiples’ runs until 26 February. For more information visit the Hauser & Wirth website

ADDRESS

Limmatstrasse 270
8005 Zurich
Switzerland

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INFORMATION

For more information on the award visit the CTBUH website

The Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, has been a key site for architecture pilgrims for years, since its creation by Mies van der Rohe in 1945 (and completion in 1951) for Dr Edith Farnsworth. Its clean lines, arresting simplicity and minimalist perfection has inspired architects, designers and artists for generations.

Now, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (which includes the site in its listings) has teamed up with United States Artists (USA) to create a public programme in the house for the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Entitled 'Architecture + Art: Inspiration Amplified', the project sees two USA fellows, composer Mary Ellen Childs and sculptor and video artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, create brand new work drawing on the historical house and its landscape.

Childs' work for the programme is a musical piece for string quartet (in order to compose it, the artist spent lots of time at the house, 'feeling the space'); while Manglano-Ovalle created a linear, sculptural artwork made of logs on site that accentuates the house's elongated, slim form.

Part of a broader initiative to pilot the creation of new art works at National Trust historic sites across the country, this programme hopes to engage a diverse audience 'visually, physically and intellectually', explain the partners. Kick-starting this exciting collaboration, the National Trust and USA hope to create a balanced synergy of art and architecture at this most iconic of 20th century architecture sites.    

INFORMATION

For dates and information on the programme, visit Farnsworth House

ADDRESS

Farnsworth House
14520 River Road
Plano, IL 60545

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Contemporary architecture is expected to be photogenic, but rarely do photographers make a comparative analysis of what’s before the lens. ‘Side by Side’ features Robin Hill’s photographs of Philip Johnson’s Glass House and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, two of the most talismanic modern houses of the 20th century. Both comprising single-storey glass structures, each displays a very specific relationship with the landscape. Johnson’s house owed much to his relationship and admiration for Mies – the two men had worked closely together ever since the German had been at the Bauhaus in the 1930s. Johnson’s chutzpah and canny aesthetic instincts essentially made him the primary importer of modernism into America, a skill he later parlayed into a career creating corporate HQs, ping-ponging between styles.

Superficially, the Glass House appears to be a copy of Edith Farnsworth’s famous (and famously problematic) dwelling, even though the former was built first. Typically, Johnson played the connection for all it was worth, ultimately concluding in interviews that he had taken van der Rohe's rigorous ‘anti-nature’ and Americanised it into a ‘house in the field’. Certainly, the two structures epitomise the great break in modernist ideology, a split between rigour and romanticism that has to some extent shaped the interpretation of ‘high’ modernism ever since.

Tellingly, 'Side by Side: Philip Johnson's Glass House and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House' is on display at New York’s Four Seasons Restaurant. Housed within the Seagram Building on Park Avenue (although entered from 52nd Street), the Four Seasons opened in 1959 and became an instant destination. Fusing fine cuisine with Johnson’s elaborate designs and specially commissioned art, the interior was reputed, at the time, to cost a cool $5m. Cited by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Committee in 1989, it has been in the loving care of Alex von Bidder and Julian Niccolini since 1995. A proposal to alter the space was rejected by the commission last month, following campaigns led by the venerable Phyllis Lambert, who had overseen the original commission for the building. It was Lambert who advised her father Edgar Bronfman, owner of the Seagram Corporation, to pair Johnson with van der Rohe. Yet despite this Manhattan original receiving the legal protection it deserves, von Bidder and Niccolini look unlikely to keep their lease beyond July 2016. Watch this space, and hopefully enjoy design, food and art in the process.

ADDRESS

Four Seasons Restaurant
99 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022

Strong geometric shapes and a variety of typologies and materials make up for an exciting list of finalists for this year's coveted Mies van der Rohe Award. The biannual prize, organized by the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe in Spain, is now on its 26th year and the five schemes to compete for the honour have just been announced.

Nominees include: the Ravensburg Art Museum in Germany by LedererRagnarsdóttirOei; the Danish Maritime Museum by BIG; the Antinori Winery in Italy by Archea Associati; the Philharmonic Hall Szczecin in Poland by Barozzi / Veiga; and the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre LSE in London by recent RIBA Gold Medal winners O'Donnell + Tuomey.

The Mies van der Rohe award is all about built work, but the nominations can be of any scale or typology. Select institutions and experts propose their respective country's best buildings of the last two years - this is an award the architects cannot enter directly, which surely adds to its appeal. This year's submissions counted a grand total of 420 projects. These were whittled down to a shortlist of 40, which in turn provided the five finalists.

It is all about supporting and celebrating contemporary architecture, says the Mies van der Rohe Foundation's Director, Giovanna Carnevali. And this is embodied in their famous headquarters in Barcelona, the reconstructed Mies van der Rohe pavilion. 'The pavilion represents in a way the beginning of modern architecture', says Carnevali. 'It is timeless'.

The ceremony and festivities to announce the winners of this year's EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture - 2015 Mies van der Rohe Award will take place in Barcelona on 8 May.

In advance of the impending renovation of the famous Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the new 'David Chipperfield: Sticks and Stones' exhibition opens today at the iconic venue - almost fifty years after its completion.

Originally designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (notably the celebrated architect's last major construction), the gallery has been a landmark of Modernism since its opening in 1968. Its steel roof, touching lightly upon a series of eight columns, seemingly suspended in mid-air, defines its pared down aesthetic - a key element of its creator's oeuvre. It also allows for an impressive column-free interior of 2,500 sq m.

The soon-to-start major renovation works, headed by David Chipperfield - also behind famous museum projects such as the Neues Museum, in Berlin's museum island, and the Saint Louis Art Museum - are due to start on site in early 2015.

Until then and for the next three months, Chipperfield will 'transform the universal space of the upper glass hall into a hall of columns consisting of 144 tree trunks'. The installation stems from a clever wordplay from the well-known English children's rhyme and refers to the 'sticks and stones' of architecture, and it unites in a single, minimal gesture, architecture and nature. '[It also] serves,' explain the architect's practice, 'as a metaphor for a temporary construction site.'

A 200 sq m meadow at the centre of this 'forest' completes the spatial experience. This floor element will act as the stage for several, both architectural and interdisciplinary shows taking place throughout the display's duration. 

ADDRESS

Neue Nationalgalerie
Potsdamer Str. 50
10178 Berlin
Germany

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A team comprising Henning Larsen Architects, Studio Olafur Eliasson and Batteriid Architects have won one of Europe's most coveted distinctions for contemporary architecture, the biennial Mies van der Rohe Award. Their winning project, the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, opened in May 2011 and its design, as the architects reveal, 'was inspired by the Icelandic landscape'.

The award ceremony was orchestrated by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation in Barcelona and its dynamic new director Giovanna Carnevali, who this year also handed out an Emerging Architect Special Mention to Spanish practice Langarita Navarro for its Red Bull Music Academy in Madrid.

The shortlist, put together by a team of national architecture bodies and international experts, included key names of European architecture such as Belgians Robbrecht en Daem, German Juergen Mayer H and Danish practice Bjarke Ingels. The winning design was a building that defied the economic crisis that hit Iceland in 2008, standing out for its creators' skill and determination. 'It is a symbol of recovery,' the judges explain. This year, the Foundation is also celebrating the award's 25 anniversary with a retrospective exhibition of all the previous winners at the MNAC, next door to the German Pavilion in Barcelona. 

We caught up with Giovanna Carnevali to talk about her future plans for the Mies van der Rohe Award. 

What traits are you looking for in a building, and what is the criteria for the award? 
The work has to be well built in terms of construction, and it has to maintain an interesting architectural quality and level of research. It also needs to display sustainability and innovation.  

What inspired you about this year's winner? 
In keeping with the Prize's tradition, this building was an important addition to its city; it characterizes it. The jury also decided to award the Harpa building to motivate Iceland. The building was still in progress when the economic crisis hit them and its financial backer went bankrupt, but the government decided to invest in it because literature, culture and music are sectors they want to support. 

You must see so many different buildings. Are you able to spot differences from country to country? 
This is a very interesting question. Up until the First World War, the differences were very clear. After that, especially in the last 25 years, these differences started to fade and we have seen more globalized approaches. But I think we can still see some differences between countries. This year we are celebrating 25 years of the award and we should use this moment to reflect on what was the task 25 years ago and what is the situation now? Do we have a uniform European culture? Let's talk about architecture, not architects. This is what the prize is about. 

What is your vision for the Foundation?
I want to use this year's celebration to work on three key events; this award ceremony, an event in December at MoMA and I am hoping to do the final instalment of the discussion at the Venice Biennale. In between those three big events, we will do more, smaller events, talk to local architects and institutions and gather as much information as possible to work out how we can judge architecture from now on.

So, will the way you judge the prize change? 
Yes definitely. That doesn't mean that we want to completely break from the past. It means that we want to also give opportunities to young people, the ones who will shape the architecture of the future. 

ADDRESS

Fundació Mies van der Rohe  Provença 318, pral. 2B.

08037 Barcelona

Spain

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‘They say that Prague is a baroque city, and Brno is a modernist one,’ says Czech architect Iveta Černá. Indeed the evidence is everywhere in the Moravian capital. In the first decades of the 20th century, culture, commerce and industry were in harmony in the city. This helped create its remarkable collection of early modernist buildings, which includes work by local functionalists Bohuslav Fuchs and Ernst Wiesner. Without a doubt, though, the city’s star architectural attraction is the Mies van der Rohe-designed Villa Tugendhat, which has been newly renovated by a team directed by Černá.

Sat on a slope offering sweeping city views, the villa is the epitome of modernity, a composition of low white volumes with a modest street façade featuring narrow openings and discreet milk glass. The three-level structure hosts a swathe of bedrooms at street-level, with the main living areas and lush indoor garden above. The airy open-plan interior features an iconic strip-glass façade that overlooks a leafy, landscaped back garden.

Built in the wealthy neighbourhood of Černá Pole at the dénouement of Brno’s prosperous 1920s, Tugendhat was the ideal, no-expense-spared modern house, commissioned by Jewish factory-owner Fritz Tugendhat on land he received as a wedding present from his in-laws. The clean, functional look belies the luxurious materials appointed by Tugendhat and Mies van der Rohe. Zebrano wood and Makassar ebony appear throughout, as well as onyx - a nod perhaps to the architect’s stone-carving heritage.

Classic furnishings by Lilly Reich complemented the architect’s own pieces, like iconic Brno, Barcelona and Tugendhat chairs, the latter custom-designed for the villa. On the lower-ground floor, put to use as a service area, was an ultra-modern (for the time) air-conditioning system and a glass façade that opens completely, thanks to a mechanism built into the wall.

Sadly, the ideal home did not have the ideal future. The family enjoyed just eight years in Tugendhat before fleeing the Nazis in 1938. ‘After that, the villa had many uses, including as a nursery and even a stable,' says Černá.

When it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, Tugendhat had deteriorated far beyond its original glory, despite having become a prime destination for architecture pilgrims. ‘Now it is the most authentic work of Mies van der Rohe in Europe,’ says Černá, who directed the renovation, ‘but back then the wear and tear was enormous.’ Entire sections of the interior were missing. Later, parts of the original wood panelling were accidentally found at Masaryk University, a building used by the Gestapo as their Brno HQ.

The recent restoration took as long as the initial, two-year-long construction. It improved upon an earlier 1980s restoration and resurrected the original colour scheme. ‘The first renovation was done in monochrome,’ recalls Irena Murray, the Czech-born director of the RIBA British Architectural Library. ‘I heard [Fritz’s wife] Greta Tugendhat speak about the villa in New York and she had been talking about its ruby reds and emerald greens. And I remember thinking, “What ruby reds and emerald greens?”’

To celebrate the villa’s return to form, RIBA will launch an exhibition in London giving a visual history of the building and a record of the recent renovation. ‘Villa Tugendhat in Context’, which opens on 19 June, follows the dramatic history of the villa through the testimony of three generations of photographers. It includes archived articles from the 1930s, together with a wealth of historical material never before seen in London.

If you cannot make the trip to Brno, the exhibition is a must-see. ‘Apart from the great architectural merit, the villa is a particularly successful expression of Mies’s ingenious ideas of creating clean, airy and flexible spaces designed to aid everyday life,’ says Murray. ‘The house adapted to all its functions with remarkable ease, itself proof of excellent design. Tugendhat might have been the gold standard for another era but there is absolutely nothing in it that couldn’t and shouldn’t serve as an example of the principles of a well-tempered dwelling today.’

There's a famous story of the first day of term at the Bauhaus school, when László Moholy-Nagy asked the new intake of students to make something out of a sheet of paper. An hour later he came back to find a profusion of swans, skyscrapers and doilies. He looked disdainfully at them until he came to a student who had simply taken his sheet, folded it in half and stood it up on his desk like a greeting card.

Moholy-Nagy pointed to it, praised it and presented it to the class. This was the one, he said, a design which uses the natural capabilities of paper, its foldability, its strength, its simplicity to create a structure that could only be possible in that one material. It is possibly apocryphal – though it sounds likely – but it embodies a curious contradiction at the heart of the Bauhaus, a cocktail of po-faced asceticism and a kind of self-conscious parody of its own seriousness.

The Bauhaus – currently the subject of a major show at London's Barbican Art Gallery – is remembered as the high-minded, German throbbing brain of modernity, a school which embodied the social, philosophical and aesthetic concerns of a movement which sought to change the world, to create a new language of design for an industrial proletarian age and which actually ended up making art objects for a wealthy and educated bourgeoisie. The seriousness of its founders and leaders, the architects Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Hannes Meyer, radiates from their portraits. These were serious men, scarred by their experiences in the First World War, and determined to radicalise design.

The ‘Bauhaus: Art as Life’ exhibition at the Barbican, designed by architects Carmody Groarke and graphic designers APFEL, attempts to humanise that image of a technocratic will to modernity through a series of personal effects, portraits and stories of the extraordinary range of individuals - many barely known beyond academic circles - who studied at the short-lived design school, which became the most influential the world has ever known.

They also bring to light a little publicised aspect of life at the Bauhaus: humour. The early years of the school were seeped in a strange stew of expressionism, Zoroastrianism and theosophy, and cultish, shaven-headed and robe-clad oddness. It was, at least in its early years, nothing like the modernist machine of myth. Instead it embodied something of the intensity of Weimar culture - it started off in that city, home of the new German republic in the wake of the horrors of the First World War.

Although it might have slowly become more harshly modernist – notably when it moved to Dessau in 1925 – it always retained as its core elements that Dadaist sense of the ridiculous, an ability to parody its own conventions (in private at least) and a fundamental humanity that was in contrast to its stark design output. It was in the activity of the everyday that this lightness emerged, rather than in the production of design.

Catherine Ince, curator of the Barbican show, says: 'We're trying to look at the Bauhaus as an art school, rather than trying to post-rationalise it into a design moment. We've tried to gather together the more personal items: presents the students made for Gropius, photography of extracurricular activities, invitations and graphics for balls and parties.'

Those parties, in particular, must have been extraordinary. There were four 'official' parties each year, elaborate affairs with stage designs by Oskar Schlemmer (head of the theatre workshops); monthly masked balls, for which students made their own, often outrageous, costumes, with music by the Bauhaus' own jazz band; and 'kite parties', in which students competed to make the best kites (some of which were, apparently, too beautiful to actually fly - functionalism, eh?).

The Barbican is showing Herbert Bayer's 1922 Kite party invitation with the letters arranged as a fluttering tail to a slightly Gilbert and Sullivan caricature, as well as another charming invitation by Rudolf Baschant that looks a little like the Clangers' Soup Dragon. And there were costume parties in which students dressed in geometric outfits, poking fun at the workshops' functionalist production. Some of the costumes were close to the anarchic spirit of Dada, including a tubular half-man, half-pantomime horse, his back-end a bicycle. At a 1929 Metallic party, the guests were wrapped in foil, the tombola prize was a Kandinsky painting, and the invitation a gorgeous graphic work by Johan Niegemann.

Puppets, and other geometric toys, also formed a fascinating part of the output of the workshops. Schlemmer's haunting, toy-like Michelin Man figures still look oddly radical - his Triadisches Ballet was a very direct inspiration for Philippe Decouflé's mesmeric 1987 video for New Order's 'True Faith'. Paul Klee's son, Felix, was already at the Bauhaus at 14 and his puppet shows sent up the school's largest characters. 'Students and teachers went along to Felix's puppet shows', says Ince, 'to catch up on the latest gossip.'

There may have been a much-commented-on incipient sexism in ghettoising the Bauhaus ladies into designing and producing textiles and toys but their output was nevertheless extraordinary - and long lasting. Alma Siedhoff-Buscher's 1923 boat-building blocks set is still in production, as is Margaretha Reichardt's string-pull puppet and peg-doll set (all produced by Swiss manufacturer Naef). You do, however, get the impression that these are toys more to please the design-conscious godparents who buy them than the children they are being given to, though at the time their abstract shapes and bold colours must have appeared spectacular.

But the chess set on display at the Barbican (Joseph Hartwig, 1923, also still produced by Naef) is a work of absolute genius, an abstraction of an abstraction which becomes pure, gorgeous sculpture. 'There was an idea of the genius of the child, of the desirability of a return to the pure state of childhood with life and art and play all being one,' explains Ince. The Bauhaus was always struggling financially. The parties slowly became more about fundraising than fun, and the increasingly vehement antagonism of the Nazi regime sealed its fate.

The school will always be remembered for the crystallisation of a moment when design began to be taken seriously. Yet the endless photos of young people dressed up in silly, inventive clothes, fooling around, give a glimpse of the humanity so often seen to be lacking in a modernism characterised by its dedication to a machine aesthetic and a dry vision of endless utopian blocks of worker housing. The Barbican's show helps put the fun back into functionalism.

INFORMATION

‘Bauhaus: Art as Life’ was on view at the Barbican in May 2012. For more information, visit the Barbican website and the Carmody Groarke website