The development of the steel frame, which became a crucial aspect of Modern architecture, had its roots in the iron frames that began to make their appearance in the tall office buildings of Chicago in the 1880s. Until that time, almost all buildings of any size including all masonry buildings had depended on their walls to hold them up; the material of the walls both kept the weather out and formed the structure of the buildings. The taller the building was, the thicker the walls had to be at the base to support the vast weight above them . There is a limit to how tall such a building can practically be before the lower floors begin to disappear in the thickness of the walls; the tallest load-bearing masonry office building ever built was Chicago’s Monadnock building in 1893, at seventeen storeys high and with walls six feet thick at the base. But with the development of the steel frame, the walls were no longer required to bear any weight; instead, the building was held up by the interior frame, while the walls kept the weather out. Initially, such buildings were clad in brick, stone or terracotta. They continued to appear nearly as massive as their masonry predecessors, partly as a visual reassurance to the public that this radical new type of structure would not collapse. But as time went on, windows became larger and cladding thinner. The non-load-bearing walls came to be known as curtain walls because they hung on their frames. Steel frames also allowed for considerable flexibility of plan, with steel beams and girders allowing for the creation of wide interior spaces. Increasingly, architects began to think about the implications for a new aesthetic
Mies was director of the Bauhaus from 1930 until it closed, at which time he left for the United States and became a highly influential architect and instructor at Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology. He developed a style that was angular and spare, typically using dark glass and metal. His buildings tend to assume one of two forms, both of which display the grid of their structure: a sleek oblong skyscraper, such as New York’s Seagram Building, or a low pavilion on a podium, such as Crown Hall, the School of Architecture building. Mies saw these basic forms, with variations, as solutions for any building type, in any situation. Coining the aphorism “less is more,” he did away with ornament and insisted that the structure itself must always determine the aesthetic of a building. He was sometimes criticised for refusing to consider fully the building’s requirements, causing practical considerations to take a back seat to his own aesthetic choices.

Mies often used rich, polished materials, which, with the elegance of proportion, provide visual interest and beauty without ornament. Here, the capabilities of steel frame construction are evident in the fully glazed exterior walls and the large open space on the main floor.
Reference
'The Story'
http://miessociety.org/mies/projects/ accessed on 7th June 2017 at 11.02am
http://miessociety.org/mies/projects/ accessed on 7th June 2017 at 11.02am
'Spotlight : Mies Van De Rohe ' by Rory Stotthttp://www.archdaily.com/350573/happy-127th-birthday-mies-van-der-rohe 7th June 2017 at11.29am
'Modern Architecture' by Mike Crews
https://savingplaces.org/modern-architecture#.WTpZeuuGOpo 7th June 2017 at 12.06pm
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