Mies van der Rohe | The Collective Housing Collection

Exhibition

September 13 - October 13, 2023 | ARCH 121 Gallery

From his early years in Germany to the end of his life in the United States, collective housing has been very present in the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The research carried out by Fernando Casqueiro, Associate Professor at ETSAMadrid, compiles, for the first time, the entire collection of collective housing projects signed by the master. Each work has been analyzed, redrawn, and compared on the same parameters. The result is a voyage through the creation and consolidation of a typology, culminating in the seminal works 860-880 Lake Shore Drive and Lafayette Pavilion. The collection is made up of 36 projects, built or only designed, that cover Mies’ life, his relationship with his clients and the influence of his collaborators. 

The exhibition is a result of the book Mies van der Rohe: The Collective Housing Collection, by by the Spanish architect and academic Fernando Casqueiro. Affiliated with the ARKRIT Architectural Criticism Research Group and ETSAM: Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (UPM), Casqueiro has explored the master architect’s experiments in housing over a period spanning nearly 40 years. Having compiled and redrawn projects from both Europe and North America to present a definitive catalogue depicting the evolution of Miesian housing archetypes, Casqueiro’s work, now published by a+t architecture publishers, is one of the most comprehensive looks into the mind of a man whose efforts have shaped the way we all live in cities, exploring the morphing relationships between floor plan and façade in its most rudimentary form. 

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