The building as seen from the present Although the reconstruction replicates just the gesture of an outstretched arm enclosing the garden, and does not follow Mies’ original concept, it still allows us to experience the unity of build ing and garden in Mies’ work more powerfully than any other of his early works, and one can still sense the intimacy of the atmosphere. While the topography of the garden is “constructed” as a series of plateaus connected by steps, the building has in turn become overgrown. Before Mies’ next building – the Warnholtz House – was discovered by historians, the Werner House was held to be an isolated exception in his oeuvre of works, so much so that his authorship was called into question.3 But it is less the formal and stylistic language that makes this building notable than the structural concept of the ensemble. Mies’ design builds on an established build ing type, and he would later declare the idea of the simple and self-evident to be an ideal, but what makes this building relevant is its definition of space through the volume of the building. The right-angular form creates a protected courtyard situation, a principle that Mies also employed for the design of his own house, al though this was never built. In his later addition to the Perls House he would likewise create an L-shaped situation, demonstrating that the pattern of living does not have to follow the arrangement of the house but vice versa. But Mies had not dispensed with the simplicity and rigour of his clearly proportioned rectangular floor plans. The different floor plans of the Perls House and the Werner House represent two conceptual poles between which he would experiment in his future work. In retrospect, his entire European oeuvre can be seen as an attempt to bring contrasting conceptions into harmonious balance. Of this period he would later say, “After my time in Holland, an inner battle ensued in which I tried to free myself from the influence of Schinkelesque classicism.”4 The origins of the L-shaped arrangement go back to the Kröller-Müller project. In Behrens’ earlier design for the building, which Mies had worked on, the lady’s quarters were connected to an intimate garden, a concept that Mies also carried over for his own design for that house and finally put into practice in a similar form here in the Werner House. 1 Paul Mebes, Um 1800, Munich 1908. In a conversation with Dirk Lohan, Mies cites Alfred Messel’s Villa Oppenheim in Berlin as one of his inspirations. Documented in a manuscript in the Mies Archives of the MoMA, New York. 2 For further information on the design of the garden, see Christiane Kruse, Garten, Natur und Landschaftsprospekt – Zur ästhetischen Inszenierung des Außenraums in den Landhausanlagen Mies van der Rohes, Dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin 1994. 3 The plans of the house are signed only by Ferdinand Goebbels, who was Mies’ partner and was also involved in executing the Perls House. Since then a further plan signed by Mies has been discovered. See also Christiane Kruse, “Haus Werner – Ein ungeliebtes Frühwerk Mies van der Rohes”, in: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1993, pp. 554–563. 4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Ulrich Conrads in 1964, produced on a phonograph record, “Mies in Berlin”, Bauwelt, Berlin 1966.
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Pergola Stairs to entrance Radiator screen