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| Saint Saviour's Chapel, the God Box, on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (JWB, 2011) |
Big day in
Chicago on this day, October 18 of 1938.
Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe made it to the city.
Halfway through his long career at that point, he first bunked down at the
Stevens Hotel, now the Conrad Hilton, for a month, moving later to the
Blackstone just to the north. From there
he walked several blocks north to the Armour Institute of Technology, located at
the Art Institute at the time.
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| JWB, 2011 |
It was this
school where he was named as the head of the Department of
Architecture. It was in this capacity
that he was given the job of designing a new campus, bringing about a
transformation that John Holabird, head of the search committee that chose
Mies, hoped would establish “the finest school in the Country.”
And it was
at this school that Mies made his inaugural address, saying, “The long path
from material to function to creative work has a single goal, to create order
out of the desperate confusion of our time.”
Franze
Schulz, in his excellent biography of Mies, wrote . . .
He was an abstractionist by nature,
with no national sympathies, no political ideology, a perfect Prometheus of the
new modernism. Just as naturalism in
painting was increasingly understood to be a superficiality, a leftover
cosmetic of history that concealed the body and bone of the art, its
equivalent in architecture—ornament or composition identified with any
historical, that is to say, outmoded, period—was regarded as a disguise, an
unwelcome concealment of the essence of building, which Mies had insisted, ever
since1922, was structure. He was now in
a position to put that old conviction to work.
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| Not a "longing to become lost"; rather, "the hope of finding oneself" (JWB, 2011) |
One of the
most modest of Mies’s designs for the new campus was the plan, developed in the
early 1950’s, for Saint Saviour's Chapel on the new campus of what had become the Illinois
Institute of Technology. You can find
what the Mies van der Rohe Society says about the chapel here.
The Society
appraises the chapel in this way:
In spite of its humble appearance, the
Chapel is an important point in Mies’ oeuvre, both historically and
architecturally . . . The building stands apart as Mies’ only masonry building
outside of Europe. Unlike his other work
in America, the walls constructed of blond bricks in an English bond pattern
are not merely decorative, but also support the small building. This marks a break from Mies’ usual division
of structure and enclosure. According to
Mies, the simple walls are intended to draw the eye upward, making the Chapel a
space for contemplation. Rather than
encouraging “a longing to become lost, “ Mies intended that visitors would feel
“the hope of finding oneself” in the small space.”
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| THIS is the way great design finds a way to turn a corner (JWB, 2011) |
The chapel
is today dedicated to the memory of Robert Franklin Carr, a tireless
philanthropist who died in 2009. During
his life he served on the boards of Children’s Memorial Hospital, Brookfield,
Zoo, the Better Government Association, Graceland Cemetery, Grant Hospital, and
Northwestern University.
If you are
looking for a place in this city to contemplate what It must have been like for
Mies to leave his native land midway through his life, relocate to a city where
his language was a foreign tongue, begin work on design that arguably changed architecture
in this country, and do it all in the lonely company of a good cigar and a
well-kept fedora, Carr Memorial Chapel is as good a place as any to start.
So welcome
to Chicago, Mies. We’re glad you came to
visit.
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| Gunny Harboe explains the first phase of his renovation plans for the exterior of the building, which was finished in 2009. The interior renovation was completed in 2011. (JWB, 2011) |
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