Google honors architect Mies van der Rohe with latest ‘doodle’

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Benevolent Internet masters Google released the latest logo-tweaking tribute to an artist on Tuesday, honoring the 126th birthday of the late German American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

With the letters to the search titan’s name squared off and tucked behind the glass of a boxy rendering that evokes Mies van der Rohe’s S.R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology (pictured), the doodle honors the modernist architect commonly associated with the aphorisms “Less is more” and “God is in the details.”

Part of the German avant-garde who was also part of the Bauhaus design school in the 1920s and ‘30s, Mies van der Rohe immigrated to the U.S. in 1937 to head the architecture department at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he would design many of the campus’ buildings.

Based in downtown Chicago for more than 30 years, Mies van der Roh designed a number of iconic metal and glass buildings around the city, including the Farnsworth House, apartments at 860-880 Lakeshore Drive and IBM Plaza.

Committed to minimalism and simplicity in design, Mies van der Rohe stands in contrast to the overall maximalism of the Internet. But stumbling across a fitting tribute to a master of modern architecture midway through a day’s browsing is almost as rewarding as encountering one of his designs on an otherwise cluttered city street.

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-- Chris Barton