On March 26, 2015, an annual birthday celebration was held in recognition of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. It took place at Crown Hall, located on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago. For the event, the Mies van der Rohe Society invited five designers to create spaces informed by Mies’s iconic furniture. Melissa Johnston, SOM Hospitality Practice Leader, and Cyril Marsollier, SOM Architectural Designer, led the firm’s installation, which features three pieces of furniture: the Brno Chair (1930) and two versions of the MR Chair (1931), one with armrests and one without.
Crown Hall was once described by Mies as “almost nothing.” SOM presents the furniture in a manner that celebrates its context and respects Mies’s influence. The plinth becomes an object that ethereally delineates space, like the architecture it inhabits. On this raised platform, the three cantilevering pieces of furniture are given space to exhibit their lithe sculptural qualities. The chrome surface reflects the three dimensional nature of each piece and amplifies the void between the seat and the ground plane.
Incisions were made in the plinth to echo the original context of each piece of furniture as they once related to Mies’s Tugendhat House. A curved makassar ebony partition, a chrome clad cruciform column, and a rosewood panel partition were used in the historic residence. These devices, used by Mies to organize space, were not walls, but sculptural forms. Coupled with the concept of doing “almost nothing,” these elements are reminiscent of work by artists Carl Andre and Franz Erhard Walther.