Cornering

WHY IS MY BLOG NOT STARTING TILL HALFWAY DOWN THE MIDDLE!? WHY????!!!!!


Okay, so now for today, we have “the corner” problem.

We had this hilarious architect in to give a lecture on Mies. He was so passionate about him that he absolutely could not stay on track at all. He would get so carried away by each and every diversion, trying so hard to make us love Mies like he does.

He wasn’t even close to finished after his two hours were over and had to flip through like 20 slides and try and get to them as fast as he could.

It was sweet and hilarious.

One of the things he got way caught up on was “the corner” problem.

When building a metal frame building, you hang what is known as a “curtain wall” . This curtain wall pretty literally hangs from the building and previous to the historic “masonry” buildings, where the walls were holding up the building, in a curtain wall building, the wall is just basically a skin. It protects from the elements etc.

As a sidenote, this is how all the terra cotta started falling off buildings on the historic stuff, the "hooks" that were holding up the terra cotta got rusted by water seeping in. Hence, pieces of the terra cotta would fall off and hit unsuspecting pedestrians in the Loop.

So what happens is, the curtain wall (especially in Miesian buildings, that are on stilts or “piloti” think Daley Center, Federal Center, etc) the curtain wall will extend past the edge of the building. Mies was incredibly concerned with the corners, as our speaker told us all architects are.
This is where “god is in the details” comes in. Some architects (and if you look around, you’ll start to notice) just end the building, put some filler in there and finish it. Mies would create a corner, usually using an “I beam”, to further show the structure of the building. Paying close close attention to the corner, as well as the rest of the building.

When we were all confused, sitting there, wondering about the “corner problem” our speaker says “Think of your own house, apartment, whatever…don’t you always have a problem with the corners?”

I thought that was pretty brilliant. I’m still working on understanding the corner problem, but heck, I can’t even understand the “front problem”.

Oh and wait till I riddle your mind with Mies' stair problem. If I can get this one straight, I'll finally understand Mies.