Skrevet af 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 considerationand
receiving none. Such has been the fate, however, of Mies's Krefeld
Villas, a pair of neighboring brickresidences of typically restrained
elegance built from 1927 to 1930. Their anonymity is, to some degree,
Mies's own doing; in 1959, in his only public comment about the
projects, he quipped that he would have preferred to use more glass, but
the clients objected. "I had great trouble," he said.
As historians
Kent Kleinman and Leslie van Duzer show in this carefully researched,
eminently readable study, sometimes it's best not to take the architect
at his word. Here they 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.
