Court House Project, Interior perspective
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
American, born Germany. 1886–1969
after 1938
This graphite drawing with cut-and-pasted photography on illustration board envisions a glass-walled courthouse interior in which Mies van der Rohe sought to express structural clarity, openness, and the deliberate placement of sculpture within a minimal frame.
A precise tiled floor and two slender columns march into a transparent horizon while a solitary photographed sculpture on the right anchors the airy, almost weightless space, making the stillness and geometry feel palpable.
The image distills Mies’s modernist credo—open, rational space framed by minimal structure—and shows how photographic collage was used to argue that steel-and-glass architecture could formally and symbolically stage civic life and art, influencing much of twentieth-century public and corporate building design.
Medium
Graphite and cut-and-pasted photography on illustration board
Dimensions
30 1/8 x 40 1/8" (76.5 x 101.9 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Mies van der Rohe Archive, gift of the architect
Accession
458.1964
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
