Mies Van der Rohe's Krefeld Villas

topics

Publishers

Architecture

ISBN: 9781568985039
English edition
Princeton Architectural Press
Hardcover, 144 pages
19,1 x 25,4 cm
colour/black & white
June 2005
€26,60 (excl. VAT)

Mies Van der Rohe's Krefeld Villas

Kent Kleinman, Leslie Van Duzer

With all of the attention Mies van der Rohe has received over the last few years, it’s hard to believe that there could be a pair of “undiscovered” buildings begging for even the slightest consideration – and receiving none. Such has been the fate, however, of Mies’s Krefeld Villas, a pair of neighboring brick residences of typically restrained elegance built from 1927 to 1930.

Historians Kent Kleinman and Leslie van Duzer guide us through the two villas, which were converted into a joined museum of contemporary art after World War II. Each chapter begins with a study of an artist who has created a site-specific installation within the villas. By analyzing how Yves Klein, Sol LeWitt, Richard Serra, and Ernst Caramelle chose to engage Mies’s architecture, they arrive at a truly original understanding of these two forgotten masterworks.