Customer Reviews

Mies van der Rohe's Krefeld Villas

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More than simply a history of these paired brick villas, the authors' present a new interpretation of these little known pre-Barcelona Pavilion Mie's works. Despite their virtual banishment from his oeurve by the master himself, a compelling arguement is made that these are not inferior works. Rather they represent the architect operating along a different thread of architectural expression than that which we have come to define as Miesian. In their analysis, the methods used and the effects obtained in this 'un-Miesian' effort are explored.

It is, therefore, most unfortunate that the visual support for this excellent scholarship is so lacking. Excepting a handful of large and medium sized pictures, most of the images here are only marginally larger than postage stamp size. These are usually 'artistically' composed leaving a largely blank page. When a truly large photo is presented it suffers from running across the gutter in this vertically oriented book. Why, in a photo book on a horizontal subject such as this, is the book formated vertically? An appendix, containing a site plan, floor plans, elevations and building sections, also suffers from presentation miniaturization, though not quite as severely as the photos.

Sadly, those looking for the definitive presentation of Haus Lange and Haus Esters will not find it here.