The logo for the Daily Beast's Obsessed website. It reads: 'Obsessed: What to Watch, Binge, See, & Skip'
DAILY BEAST
Membership call to action crossword iconCrosswordNewsletters
  • Gift Guides
  • Cheat Sheet
  • Obsessed
  • Politics
  • Israel-Gaza
  • Entertainment
  • Media
  • Opinion
  • U.S. News
  • Scouted
CHEAT SHEET
    POLITICS
    • Biden World
    • Elections
    • Opinion
    • National Security
    • Congress
    • Pay Dirt
    • The New Abnormal
    • Trumpland
    MEDIA
    • Confider
    • Daytime Talk
    • Late-Night
    • Fox News
    U.S. NEWS
    • Identities
    • Crime
    • Race
    • LGBT
    • Extremism
    • Coronavirus
    WORLD
    • Russia
    • Europe
    • China
    • Middle East
    INNOVATION
    • Science
    TRAVEL
      ENTERTAINMENT
      • TV
      • Movies
      • Music
      • Comedy
      • Sports
      • Sex
      • TDB's Obsessed
      • Awards Shows
      • The Last Laugh
      CULTURE
      • Power Trip
      • Fashion
      • Books
      • Royalist
      TECH
      • Disinformation
      SCOUTED
      • Sales
      • Reviews
      • New Kids on the Block
      • Beauty
      • Fitness
      • Home
      • Technology
      • Travel
      COUPONS
      • Vistaprint Coupons
      • Ulta Coupons
      • Office Depot Coupons
      • Adidas Promo Codes
      • Walmart Promo Codes
      • H&M Coupons
      • Spanx Promo Codes
      • StubHub Promo Codes
      Products
      NewslettersPodcastsCrosswordsSubscription
      FOLLOW US
      GOT A TIP?

      SEARCH

      HOMEPAGE
      0

      Mies van der Rohe at MoMA is the Daily Pic by Blake Gopnik

      Conceptual Starchitecture

      The Daily Pic: In 1942, Mies van der Rohe designed a concert hall around a plane factory's bones.

      Blake Gopnik

      Blake Gopnik

      Updated Jul. 11, 2017 9:43PM EDT / Published Jul. 25, 2013 3:14PM EDT 

      (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mies van der Rohe Archive, gift of Mrs. Mary Callery; © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn)

      This gorgeous photomontage by Mies van der Rohe, in the "Cut 'n' Paste" show at the Museum of Modern Art, is a study for an imaginary concert hall, prepared for Architectural Forum magazine for a 1942 feature on the American “town of the future". It is striking how Mies, who was a builder through and through, made truly stunning works on paper, whereas his colleague and rival Le Corbusier, though always claiming props as a painter, was really only good in 3D. (That comes clear in the Corbusier survey that’s just upstairs from where the Mies is hanging at MoMA – I Daily Pic’d its best painting yesterday.)

      But there’s way more to Mies’s image than its visual brilliance. As the scholar Neil Levine has discussed, the background image for the concert-hall study shows an aircraft assembly plant built by Albert Kahn in Maryland in 1937, as the largest open-span structure achieved until then. When Mies grabbed its image for his study, the vast space was being used to build bombers just then attacking the Nazi regime – from which Mies had recently fled, later than most of his peers and after years of less than evident opposition. (You can just see one plane behind the collaged sculpture; Mies blacked out details of others.) As Levine points out, the potent formal values of this study come steeped in politics and the real world – precisely what photomontage was designed to invoke.

      For a full visual survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.

      Blake Gopnik

      Blake Gopnik

      Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.

      READ THIS LIST

      DAILY BEAST
      • Cheat Sheet
      • Politics
      • Entertainment
      • Media
      • World
      • Innovation
      • U.S. News
      • Scouted
      • Travel
      • Subscription
      • Crossword
      • Newsletters
      • Podcasts
      • About
      • Contact
      • Tips
      • Jobs
      • Advertise
      • Help
      • Privacy
      • Code of Ethics & Standards
      • Diversity
      • Terms & Conditions
      • Copyright & Trademark
      • Sitemap
      • Coupons
      • Coupons:
      • Dick's Sporting Goods Coupons
      • HP Coupon Codes
      • Chewy Promo Codes
      • Nordstrom Rack Coupons
      • NordVPN Coupons
      • JCPenny Coupons
      • Nordstrom Coupons
      • Samsung Promo Coupons
      • Home Depot Coupons
      • Hotwire Promo Codes
      • eBay Coupons
      • Ashley Furniture Promo Codes
      © 2023 The Daily Beast Company LLC