Publication

  • Mies van der Rohe: The Architect in His Time
    Dietrich Neumann
    Author
    Yale University Press, 2020
  • GRANTEE
    Yale University Press
    GRANT YEAR
    2019

Mies van der Rohe, Haus Severain Wiesbaden, Germany, 1933–34 (destroyed 1945).

Featuring a catalogue of works and new photography, Mies van der Rohe is an ambitious critical monograph that aims to challenge the established narrative of this seminal architect. Dietrich Neumann takes a nonhagiographic approach, driven by the importance of context—social, political, and architectural—for understanding the architect’s life and work. Organized chronologically, Neumann consults contemporary responses to Mies’s work, competition entries, building codes, structural and material qualities of built forms, and detailed looks at the work on the drafting table in Mies’s office and those of his collaborators. He attributes two previously unknown houses to Mies and several smaller projects; these further complicate typical biographies of Mies which present his work as a series of masterpieces. Neumann notably provides a nuanced portrait of Mies’s relationship with his benefactors, including his refusal to take a stand against the Nazi government for fear that doing so would compromise any potential commissions.

Dietrich Neumann is professor of history of art and architecture, director of urban studies, and professor of Italian studies at Brown University. He served as president of the Society of Architectural Historians from 2008 to 2010. His many publications include Richard Neutra’s Windshield House (Yale University Press, 2001) and The Structure of Light: Richard Kelley and the Illumination of Modern Architecture (Yale University Press, 2010).

Katherine Boller, senior editor, art and architecture, will be the primary collaborator at Yale University Press. She will coordinate the book’s editing, production, and design to bring the project to completion. Upon publication, she will work closely with Yale’s marketing, publicity, and sales teams to promote and disseminate the book. Boller has worked in acquisitions for Yale’s award-winning art and architecture list since 2010.

Yale University Press, founded 1908, aids in the discovery and dissemination of light and truth, a central purpose of Yale University. The Press’s publications are books and other materials that further scholarly investigation, advance interdisciplinary inquiry, stimulate public debate, educate both within and outside the classroom, and enhance cultural life. In its commitment to increasing the range and vigor of intellectual pursuits, Yale Press continually extends its horizons to embody university publishing at its best.