Today, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s ideas and designs for a glass skyscraper are part of the history of architecture. It was for the first time in 1922, when working on his independent project of a glass skyscraper, that the architect developed his ideas using a three-dimensional model. As often was the case for Mies van der Rohe, the emphasis for him laid on the visionary handling of glass as a building material rather than the delineation of feasible structures.

The photographs of Curt Rehbein show the model in open-air as well as in front of a dark background in an interior space in relation to its future environment. Here, Mies van der Rohe used the photographic medium to highlight various aspects of the building. The organically shaped and rounded glass architecture clearly protrudes from the cowering plaster staffages by the sculptor Oskar Herzog. Placed in front of the dark background, the model appears to be radiating from within itself, the skin-like glass surface seems transparent and like a delicate appearance around the skeleton of beams and floors. This photographs was very likely taken at Mies van der Rohe’s Berlin studio at the address “Am Karlsbad 24”.

Together with a programmatic essay by Mies van der Rohe, this photograph of the glass skyscraper was published for the first time in 1922 in the magazine Frühlicht (Early Light). In this essay, the architect elaborated on the meaning of his glass model: “My experiments with the glass model have shown me the way, and I soon realized, that what is important when using glass was not an effect of light and shadow, but instead a rich play of light reflexes.” [Quoted in: Frühlicht, Vol. 1, Issue 4 (1922): 124.] The architect remembered his experiments with the material in 1968: “Then, I tried to work with smaller glass planes. I just arranged the glass strips according to the light before sticking them into the Plasticine ground. This consequently led to the curve […] I particularly wanted to show the skeleton and thought that it would be best if I drape a glass-like skin around it.” [Quoted in: Dziewior, Yilmaz, Mies van der Rohe, Blick durch den Spiegel (Cologne, 2005), 26.]

The present print represents an enlarged detail of the photograph published in Frühlicht (Early Light). Mies van der Rohe dedicated this print to his “teacher Peter Behrens [(1868-1940); …] with gratitude and adoration.” The young architect worked in Behrens’ studio in Neubabelsberg during the years 1908 to 1912, where he participated in, among other projects, the designs for the small-power motor hall of the AEG turbine factory and the supervision of the construction of the German Embassy in St. Petersburg. The occasion for presenting Behrens with this gift has yet to be determined, but Behrens’ sixtieth birthday in 1928 appears as a likely time.

What is certain, however, is that Mies van der Rohe presented this print on another occasion to his former employee and long-time friend Karl Otto (1904-1975) before 1935. At the end of WWII, the print was still in his possession. Otto had met the “admired designer of two glass high-rises” already in 1926, when he was still a student of architecture [Quoted in: Witt, Julia, Otto und Mies – zwei Architekten auf dem Weg, MA Thesis BTU Cottbus, 2005, 27.] During this time, Otto gratuitously worked for Mies van der Rohe as a draftsman. From 1929 to 1935, Otto participated in various building projects of Mies van der Rohe’s construction bureau such as the world exhibition of 1929 in Barcelona. Additionally, Otto worked on the construction of the Haus des Rundfunks (House of the Radio Broadcast) in Berlin. In several documents, both Mies van der Rohe and Poelzig recognize the talent of the young aspiring architect.

Mies van der Rohe and Otto contacted each other again after the end of the war and Otto also visited the older architect repeatedly in Chicago. Otto acted as the director of the Hochschule für bildende Künste (Academy for Fine Arts, today University of the Arts) in Berlin from 1956 until 1969. Even in this late period, during a radio report on the occasion of Mies van der Rohe’s eightieth birthday in 1966, Otto emphasized the importance of the early glass skyscraper projects as audacious and radical designs. At the time, he may have been referring to Curt Rehbein’s photographs of the glass model..

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to Prof. Karl Otto / private collection, United Kingdom

Hauptstadt Berlin: internationaler städtebaulicher Ideenwettbewerb 1957/58, Berlinische Galerie, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, 3. November 1990 to 6. January 1991

Frühlicht Bd. 1, 1922, H. 4, S. 122 (Variation)
Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1947, S. 29 (Variation)
Ludwig Hilberseimer, Mies van der Rohe, Chicago 1957, S. 27 (Varation)
Mies van der Rohe, Vorbild und Vermächtnis, Frankfurt/M. 1987, S. 37 (Variation)
Mies in Berlin. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Die Berliner Jahre 1907-1938, ed. by Terence Riley & Barry Bergdoll, München a.o. 2002, S. 187, Abb. 55 (Variation)