Conversations with Mies van der Rohe

It has been said that modernist legend Mies van der Rohe's thirty years spent working in America reflected his most consistent and mature efforts toward achieving his goal of a new architecture for the twentieth century. Focusing on this American period, Conversations with Mies van der Rohe, the latest addition to our Conversations series, gives fresh credence to this claim by presenting the architect's most important design concerns in his own words. In this collection of interviews Mies talks freely about his relationship with clients, the common language he aimed for in his architectural projects, the influences on his work, and the synthesis of architecture and technology that he advanced in his designs and built works. Conversations with Mies van der Rohe makes an important contribution to the corpus of Mies scholarship. It presents a vivid picture of a master of modernism, bringing his artistic biography to a close while completing the scope of his style in terms of techniques, scale, use of materials, and typology. An essay by Iñaki Ábalos provides a context for these interviews and looks at Mies's legacy from a contemporary perspective.