Space, Shape and Structure in the 50x50' House by Mies van der Rohe

Abstract

During the American stage of Mies the beauty of the constructive precision and the essentiality of space is emphasized, which subordinates the program to formal purity. Form is not invented, nor is it the corollary of function or technology, but is the result of placing transcendent and timeless values on secondary issues. The architect must establish an order that assures the formality of the work, but in modernity the systematic classicist rules no longer run. So the goodness of the result is a consequence of the ability of the architect and the user to share visual codes. The effort of Mies in this stage will be to establish certain certainties, universal and clear, developed around the relation among space, structure and shape. The Fifty by Fifty feet house marks a turning point in these intentions and points the path of his latest works.