'Country House' - Mies van der Rohe, 1923

A wonderfully free-flowing 'pinwheel' plan for this country house project by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1923. A plan that combines elements of Frank Lloyd Wright, De Stijl (see below left for example from 1918), Berlage and Malevich.

Walls thrust out into the environment, almost as Frank Lloyd Wright had them do a generation earlier -- only here they are simpler and less 'centred'; they 'hold' rather than 'grasp,' and their reach is less centrifugal and perhaps less ordered.

The elevations themselves are less successful -- Mies was still working out how to roof such a plan (something he worked out with his 'floating roof' of the Barcelona Pavilion) -- but it's fair to say that with this floor plan a new thing was brought into the world. It was a plan that justified a 'Eureka!'

TAGS: Architecture