Following the revolutionary sketches Mies van der Rohe had drafted on the occasion of the competition for the “Tower House at Friedrichstraße, the German architect continued his glass-skyscraper project in 1922 with a large, three-dimensional model. With the help of experiments involving the plastic object, Mies van der Rohe apprehended how to use his new skeletal mode of construction in conjunction with the large glass windows designated to define the exterior surface of the future building. Although the goal was to create a feasible construction, Mies van der Rohe was much more concerned about form and the building’s appearance within the urban setting than with practical concerns of function and usability. @The architect had the model photographed out in the open with natural light even though he did not know yet where the building would be erected eventually. The occurrences of several old buildings, which are either mirrored by or seen through the glass surface of the model, contextualize the future building. Still, this scene is also reminiscent of expressionistic sceneries like the staffages created by the sculptor Oswald Herzog. In addition, the photographer Curt Rehbein established another spatial link between the glass-skyscraper and the former Kolonialmuseum (Museum of Colonialism) of which one sees merely the flat dome in the background of the photograph. Photographed from slightly below and towards the sky, the image depict beautifully the transparency of the building’s body as well as the variegated play of light reflections, which had been so important to Mies van der Rohe. In comparison with the drawing for the competition, one can see how the concept of the “Wabe” (honeycomb) had been developed further. The cell-like ordered levels on top of the multiply curved foundation eventually had become an organic form, a delicate sculpture. In his photograph, Curt Rehbein was hence able to effectively capture Mies van der Rohe’s intentions. The model of the glass-skyscraper, an epitome of modern architecture history, was documented photographically for the last time in 1923 at the “Internationalen Architekturausstellung des Bauhauses” (International Exhibition of Architecture at the Bauhaus) in Weimar. The model was later damaged during transportation and finally collapsed on the balcony of Mies van der Rohe’s apartment “Am Karlsbad 24”..

All the works of the convolute are from the bequest of Eduard Ludwig (1906-1960), an architect and former Bauhaus student, who worked as an assistant to Mies van der Rohe. Both men kept a life-long friendship. Ludwig had enrolled as a Bauhaus student in 1928. His teachers were Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Josef Albers, Walter Peterhans and Mies. After earning his degree in 1932, Ludwig’s first job was at the Bauhaus building department. After the closing of the school in September 1932, Ludwig worked at Mies’ office in Berlin and, since 1935, also at the studio of Lilly Reich. Today, documents from Ludwig's bequest are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Werkbundarchiv, Berlin, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, among others.

Mies und das Neue Wohnen, Räume, Möbel, Fotografie, hg. von Helmut Reuter u. Birgit Schulte, Ostfildern 2008, ill. 12, p. 15 and ill. 210, p. 214
Mies in Berlin. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Die Berliner Jahre 1907-1938, ed. by Terence Riley and Barry Bergdoll, Munich u.A. 2002, ill. 5, p. 353 (Variation)