Thick Skin

​Mies’s Loop Post Office in Chicago provides an exemplary building for the study of skins in architecture. The building’s large steel beams painted matte black are separated from the non-load bearing exterior walls, which are full height glass and stretch along four sides of the building. The walls are only broken up only by the steel I-beam mullions. The glass façade reduces the perception of weight while accentuating the building’s transparency. Its materiality alludes to the thin, light and diaphanous qualities that one would associate with skins. The separation of the load-bearing structure and the non-load bearing enclosure has afforded enormous freedom for the exploration of architectural space in the 20th century. The building skin, on the other hand, becomes a surface opened to investigations through the various strategies of material, perception and programmatic thickenings. The opportunity for discovery is vast. 

Lina. Inside Mies's Mind.

Tyler. Transportable Skins.

Rebekah. The Ghost of Mies.

Alex. Mies and Movements.

Melis. Trangressing Mies.

Suzie. Sensing and Learning Mies.

Jordanna. The Four Modernisms.

Olive. Transcribing Transparency.

Molly. Capturing Corners.

Dana. Mies and the Weathering in Time.

Lauren. aMediated Nature.

Liang Su. Recomposing Mies.