In partnership with The Arts Club of Chicago, the Mies Society presented a conversation and book signing with Dirk Lohan (Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture Alumnus, FAIA) to celebrate the publication of The Lost, Last Words of Mies van der Rohe: The Lohan Tapes from 1969, edited and annotated by Fritz Neumeyer.
Lohan began to record his conversations with his grandfather Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the summer of 1969. The tapes, recorded during the final weeks of Mies’ life, captured some of the architect’s very last words. Says Lohan, “We had lively discussions on those evenings about our work, my daily life and his experiences during his long career. When we talked about his life in Germany, we spoke German with each other, while American projects were discussed in English...it occurred to me that a practical solution might be to purchase a tape recorder and simply record our talks, not least as a resource for future researchers.”
The book features a foreword by Lohan and an introductory essay by Fritz Neumeyer, one of the world’s foremost scholars on Mies, exploring Mies’ early career and his architectural way of thinking.
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