IIT Master Plan, Chicago, Illinois, Campus, perspective, first version

1933–1937

Attempts to get along with the Nazis

Some of his designs, such as autobahn service stations, found favour with Hitler; Mies and Gropius joined the visual arts section of the Reich Culture Chamber, entered early Nazi architectural competitions with designs showing structures decorated with swastikas, and signed an artists’ manifesto supporting Hitler’s succession to Hindenburg. His design for a Reichsbank building in Berlin won one of six prizes but was rejected by Hitler.

1937–1938

Emigration to the United States

His modernist designs of glass and steel were not considered suitable for state buildings by the Nazis, and in 1937 or 1938 Mies reluctantly followed Gropius to the United States, where he accepted a residential commission in Wyoming and then an offer to head the department of architecture of the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago.

1940

The Armour Institute becomes IIT: Mies stays

When the Armour Institute merged with the Lewis Institute in 1940 to form the Illinois Institute of Technology, Mies stayed to head its architecture department and was hired to design the new buildings and master plan of the campus; he replaced the traditional École des Beaux-Arts curriculum with a three-step education — from the crafts of drawing and construction through planning skills to the theory of architecture.

1940

Lora Marx, his companion to the end

From 1940 until his death the artist Lora Marx (1900–1989) was his primary companion.