It is profoundly wrong to judge someone as prolific and successful as Mies with just three little words, still that inescapable quote of "less is more" haunts every conversation of his work and is still an accurate description of his importance. One of the greatest of the Mid-Century Modern Architects, he changed the course of the profession forever with the Barcelona Pavilion and New York's Seagram Building.

Barcelona Pavilion
(1929) Barcelona, Spain

Revolutionary in its time, the Barcelona Pavilion (the German contribution to a World Exposition in Barcelona) was a building with no (real) purpose. Open for less than a year, it was quickly demolished but is still not forgotten.

Click here to visit the The Fundació Mies van der Rohe, the people that rebuilt and operate the Barcelona Pavilion in, well, Barcelona

860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments
(1951) Chicago, Illinois, United States

Who would ever want to live in an all glass apartment on the lake? I mean, people can see everything you do! And the buildings are so cold, so rational. It's not a home- it's an office building! Fifty years later the initial concerns seem almost quaint as Mies created a new (easily ripped off) standard for city living.

Illinois Institute of Technology
(1956) Chicago, Illinois, United States

Mies' own kingdom was on the south side of Chicago (within sight of Comiskey Park) at the Illinois Institute of Technology Campus. I.I.T.'s crowning achievement was Crown Hall which housed the School of Architecture, far and away the most dominant building on campus, just as it should be.

Click here to start visiting the Illinois Institute of Technology, home to the ghost of Mies as well as celebrated new buildings by Helmut Jahn and Rem Koolhaas

Seagram Building
(1958) New York City, United States

The cool, ironic fact about the Seagram Building (that you probably know already) is that the vertical, exposed I beams are completely unnecessary. They're just ornaments. Apparently less isn't always more.

Click here to visit the only public area of the building, Mies and Philip Johnson's Four Seasons Restaurant, where it costs $45 for a dinner of some deer meat

Neue Nationalgalerie
(1968) Berlin, Germany

Mies returned to (West) Berlin for one of his last great projects, the New National Gallery, a beautifully empty building under a hulking roof (the real galleries and all of the clutter is in the basement).

Click here to visit the Neue Nationalgalerie in the Kulturforum, near the Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz