The presence of art in Mies van der Rohe’s houses

peer-reviewedIs Mies van der Rohe’s architecture hostile to art? Set within the context of a lifelong engagement with artworks and their collectors, a closer consideration of the Lange and Tugendhat houses reveals a moment of transition. The anticipatory incompleteness of the Lange House yields to the Tugendhat House’s integrated approach in which the house itself becomes a work of art. Not at all hostile to art, Mies’ architecture is seen as accommodating, assimilating and elevating art