Transatlantic Modernism: Mies van der Rohe in Bloomington and Berlin

Right across from IU’s Ferguson International Center, an equally striking building houses the hub of the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design. Opened at the end of 2021 on the Bloomington campus, the structure was built from a rediscovered design by the world-famous modernist architect Mies van der Rohe.

Even those unfamiliar with Mies van der Rohe’s name will have encountered one of his designs. Born in 1886 in Germany, Mies is regarded as one of the 20^th century’s most influential architects as well as designers.

In the early 1930s, he was the last director of the Bauhaus, a pioneering modernist school of art, architecture and design. Mies emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago where he headed the architecture school of the Illinois Institute of Technology. During his three decades as an architect in the United States, he designed numerous notable buildings that influenced architecture styles of the 50s and 60s.

That one of those characteristic designs had been for a fraternity on IU’s Bloomington campus came as a surprise for many. “To find out that in 1950 the Alpha Theta chapter of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity at IU had commissioned Mies van der Rohe to design a new house, and that IU now might have the opportunity to realize these plans, was amazing,” says Adam Thies, associate vice president for capital planning and design at IU.

Thies started researching the history of the forgotten design in 2015 after IU alumnus and principal donor Sidney Eskenazi had informed then IU President Michael A. McRobbie of the existence of drawings for the fraternity of which Mr. Eskenazi had been a member during his time at IU. After spending several years researching the dramatic history of the lost Mies plans at the Chicago Art Institute and other archives, Adam Thies was joined in his effort by Eskenazi faculty member Jon Racek – and a joint visit to the Mies Archive at the Museum of Modern Art in New York helped complete the story. Concurrent to their historical research, IU announced in 2019 that it would realize the 10,000-square-foot, two-story-building, paying for construction with the generous support of Sidney and Lois Eskenazi.

During Thies’s and Racek’s deep-dive into the history of Mies’s project in Bloomington they also discovered other unconstructed designs in Indiana and decided to work on a presentation together that brought their findings to a larger public. Soon after, the idea formed to publish a book on the subject. They realized that their project would benefit from experiencing Mies’s influence and lasting legacy in his native country Germany.

To be able to tell the story of this building’s history and realization, a building by Mies van der Rohe, in Mies’ German place of Berlin was a tremendous full circle moment for us. It was an honor to share the story with the group that attended the lecture,

Thies and Racek observed about their experience.

In addition to this centerpiece of their academic excursion to Berlin, they also had the chance to visit important sites such as the Bauhaus in Dessau and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Mies’s last work that was completed in 1968. Through a private tour and exchanges with the Nationalgalerie’s curators as well as a visit of and discussion with the director of another Mies building in Berlin (Haus Lemke), Thies and Racek could engage with local Mies van der Rohe and Bauhaus experts.

Their encounters and experiences in Germany allowed Thies and Racek to establish a more profound connection with Mies scholars and the architectural community in Berlin and will serve as further inspiration for their upcoming book on Mies’ work in Indiana.