65 “米斯在美国”建筑艺术展.pdfVIP

65 “米斯在美国”建筑艺术展 Mies in America Exhibit Celebrates ArchitectsCareer Barbara Schoetzau New York 18 Jul 2001 06:04 UTC Two major New York museums are celebrating the career of the 1)legendary 2)architect Mies van der Rohe. Mies van der Rohe came to the United States after he fled Nazi Germany in 1938. The Museum of Modern Art is 3)exploring the work he left behind in an exhibit called Mies in Germany. The Whitney Museum of American Artsexhibit, Mies in America,focuses on his second career in the United States where he settled in Chicago until his death in 1969. Most critics believe he made his greatest contributions in the New World, where his glass and steel structures defined architecture at mid-century. Whitney Museum curator Michael Hays says the current interest in Mies van der Roheswork reflects the 4)conviction that architecture has an important cultural impact. Ithink that too often we think of architecture as providing a service, that its value is 5)utilitarian,that it helps keep the rain out and keep them warm, he says. But Mies insisted that its cultural power was greater than that, that it 6)represented how asociety defines itself or the values it 7)aspires too. It was during his years in the United States that Mr. van der Rohe built one of the most 8)acclaimed structures of the 20th century, New Yorks Seagram Building, completed in 1958. Phyllis Lambert the daughter of Seagram founder Samuel Bronfman, chose Mies van der Rohe as the architect for the companysinternational 9)headquarters in New York. What makes it so special is the building rises straight from the ground, she says. Most buildings go up 10 stories and then, setbacks. It does not have any of those 10)setbacks.It just rises straight from the 11)plaza.And it has that open plaza. So those two things make it highly visible. It is an object, aform. Then, of course, its extraordinary proportions. In an article discussing