Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, (Power House: perspective rendering.)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
American, born Germany. 1886–1969
1944
A Conté crayon perspective drawing on illustration board proposing a power house for the Illinois Institute of Technology, in which Mies van der Rohe reduces a utilitarian building to a refined, rectilinear volume.
Precise, restrained hatching and subtle tonal washes present a tall chimney-anchored box with spare detailing and tiny human figures that make the building’s scale and austere presence sharply legible against a wide, quiet field of board.
The image crystallizes Mies’s modernist credo—clarity of form, structural honesty, and architectural economy—and helped establish the pared-down vocabulary that would shape mid-20th-century institutional architecture.
Medium
Conté crayon on illustration board
Dimensions
20 x 30" (50.8 x 76.1 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Mies van der Rohe Archive, gift of the architect
Accession
732.1963
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
