A Birthday Offering for Mies - the debut of The Architects Page

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His birthday was actually on Sunday, but the Mies van der Rohe Society is celebrating the 125th anniversary of the great architect's birth with their annual bash at Crown Hall, Monday, March 28th.  It might not be the blowout of the 1950's student dance where Mies himself sat in his new Crown Hall happily puffing on his cigar as Duke Ellington and his orchestra set the huge panes of glass shaking, but you're still promised you'll be able to . . .

Celebrate the birth of a pioneer in Modern design and learn a little something about the unique characteristics of Mies van der Rohe’s work. Come for the company, stay for the cocktails! Just what are the marks of a Mies design? Wright auction’s Michael Jefferson will talk briefly about collecting the master’s work and will highlight market trends.

The party runs from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., which leaves plenty of time for bar-crawling through your own more Miesian martini-run afterwards, and perhaps even participate in an all-out bar brawl over the size of the new window stops.  Tickets are $50.00, or $125.00 including a one-year membership in the Society, and will be available at the door.  A larger contribution, and maybe they'll let you operate the Crown Hall air vents that Ludwig Hilberseimer made it his job to open and close each day.  For more information, call 312/567.5030.

For our own celebration, we've launched The Architects Page: Mies van der Rohe, the first of what we expect will be a series of landing pages for important designers.  It's a collection of links to major articles I've done on Mies at IIT, the restoration of Crown Hall, the story of Farnsworth House and the battle to save it, and more, including links to books, websites, and even a brief video of Mies himself explaining the origin of a very famous phrase.   Plus a gallery of photographs.  Check it all out here.