Germany is recognized as the origin of leaders in arts, culture, and the sciences, but when it comes to furniture design no other name rings a bell more than that of the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. A resident of the North Rhine-Westphalian city of Aachen, Mies van der Rohe is known along with fellow German Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier as the early leader of modern furniture movement by mixing the elements found in modern architecture into furniture design.

Born on March 27, 1886, Mies van der Rohe (whose original name is Maria Ludwig Mies) began working in his father’s stone-carving production and with the office of the designer Bruno Paul. Then in 1908 he started his training with the famous architect Peter Behrens. It was while training at Behren’s office that the young van der Rohe was shown to the latest design theories of the time as well as knowing two of his friemds, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, who were also working for Behrens at the time. After ending his training van der Rohe worked as a construction manager at the German Embassy in Saint Petersburg, but his gift was swiftly known and was soon making independent work on his own. Later on van der Rohe built his own architectural work and adopted a new name to mark his coming of age.

In the same style as his architectural projects, Mies van der Rohe made his furnishings with excellent craftsmanship and a mix of both the traditional and modern. Two of his more popular products in furniture design comprised of the stainless steel Barcelona Chair of the German Pavilion in 1929, and the cantilever Brno Chair of the Tugendhat house in Czechoslovakia. In all of his designs, van der Rohe would regularly partners with the designer Lilly Reich, who was also his longtime contemporary. In addition to building furniture, Mies van der Rohe further became one of the last directors of the prominent Bauhaus school of design in Berlin.

During his reign at the Bahaus in the early 1930’s van der Rohe took on the school’s signature design of functionalism and the use of minimal geometric forms. However, the school ceased to function in 1933 under pressure power from the Nazi body, forcing van der Rohe to leave Germany in 1937 and accepting occupation on a residential commission in Wyoming.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe rested on August 17, 1969 and was buried along with other well-known architects at the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. However, his work and influence in modern furniture design still continues on to this day, with his designs now known typical images of the modern furniture movement of the 20th century.

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