Product Description

With all of the attention Mies van der Rohe has received over the last few years, it's hard to believe that there could be a pair of "undiscovered" buildings begging for even the slightest consideration—and receiving none. Such has been the fate, however, of Mies's Krefeld Villas, a pair of neighboring brickresidences of typically restrained elegance built from 1927 to 1930. Their anonymity is, to some degree, Mies's own doing; in 1959, in his only public comment about the projects, he quipped that he would have preferred to use more glass, but the clients objected. "I had great trouble," he said.As historians Kent Kleinman and Leslie van Duzer show in this carefully researched, eminently readable study, sometimes it's best not to take the architect at his word. Here they guide us through the two villas, which were converted into a joined museum of contemporary art after World War II. Each chapter begins with a study of an artist who has created a site-specific installation within the villas. By analyzing how Yves Klein, Sol LeWitt, Richard Serra, and Ernst Caramelle chose to engage Mies's architecture, they arrive at a truly original understanding of these two forgotten masterworks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1122089 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Review
(the authors) have employed an unusual methodology to re-examine these two adjacent villas...and, provocatively, suggest their own reading. -- Architect's Journal, March 11, 2005

...Rediscovers two elegantly nuanced and thoughtful projects, repositioning them where they seem more prescient than when they were completed. -- Architecture + Urbanism, Japan

Kleinman and VanDuzer...expose the many misconceptions of these works...and, provocatively, suggest their own reading. -- Architect's Journal, 03/11/05

About the Author
Kent Kleinman and Leslie Van Duzer, authors of Villa Muller: A Work of Adolf Loos (Princeton Architectural Press,1994) and Rudolf Arnheim: Revealing Vision (University of Michigan Press, 1997), teach at the State University of New York in Buffalo and the University of Minnesota respectively. They have taught at schools throughout Europe and the United States and have published in numerous international journals. Kleinman, a 2005 Fellow at the Canadian Center for Architecture and a 2002 Public Goods Senior Fellow at the University of Michigan, is currently writing on the work of William Muschenheim and early modernity in the United States. Van Duzer, a recent Fulbright recipient, is currently preparing a book with Maria Szadkowska on Adolf Loos's complete Czech oeuvre.

Customer Reviews

Fine Scholarship - Poor Visuals
More than simply a history of these paired brick villas, the authors' present a new interpretation of these little known pre-Barcelona Pavilion Mie's works. Despite their virtual banishment from his oeurve by the master himself, a compelling arguement is made that these are not inferior works. Rather they represent the architect operating along a different thread of architectural expression than that which we have come to define as Miesian. In their analysis, the methods used and the effects obtained in this 'un-Miesian' effort are explored.

It is, therefore, most unfortunate that the visual support for this excellent scholarship is so lacking. Excepting a handful of large and medium sized pictures, most of the images here are only marginally larger than postage stamp size. These are usually 'artistically' composed leaving a largely blank page. When a truly large photo is presented it suffers from running across the gutter in this vertically oriented book. Why, in a photo book on a horizontal subject such as this, is the book formated vertically? An appendix, containing a site plan, floor plans, elevations and building sections, also suffers from presentation miniaturization, though not quite as severely as the photos.

Sadly, those looking for the definitive presentation of Haus Lange and Haus Esters will not find it here.