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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Inventor of the “less is more” motto that enhances essentiality, German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Aachen, 1886 - Chicago, 1969), moved to Berlin at the age of 19. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and worked in the studio of Peter Behrens, one of the masters of architecture of the time, collaborating with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, experiences that forged his architectural language, based on discipline and the rigor of forms. In 1929 he projected the German pavilion at the Barcelona Expo, furnishing it with his Barcelona armchair made of chromed steel and leather, inspired by the folding seats of ancient Egypt. Director of the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1932, due to the rise of Nazism, in the late 30s van der Rohe moved to the United States to Chicago; here he designed his first private residence, Farnsworth House, made entirely of glass walls. Glass was the basis element for numerous buildings he conceived in the last twenty years of his life, based on the simplicity of forms, such as the Seagram Building skyscraper in New York (1958), described as the ultimate International Style icon. "Less is more" has become an expression applied from architecture to industrial design, up to technology and fashion.
