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Biographical Summary
Werner Buch was born in 1917 in Bad Neuenahr, Germany, and studied
architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. From 1938
until 1941 he traveled and studied in the United States, first
at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and then in Chicago
at the University of Chicago and at the Illinois Institute of
Technology with Mies van der Rohe. Buch returned to Germany during
World War II and worked in the aircraft industry in Halle/Saale,
flying in the Wehrmacht. After the war, while working for Radio
Frankfort as a newswriter and editor, he continued to study architecture
at the Darmstadt Institute of Technology where he earned his principal
diploma in 1952 and Ph.D. in 1961. In 1955 he began to teach there
and did so until 1982. Since 1966 Buch has also practiced architecture
independently. Buch died in Berlin, Germany on January 20, 2007.
Interview Highlights
Buch speaks about his architectural studies in Berlin; interest
in the United States; studying with Mies van der Rohe; his personal
relationship with Mies; Ludwig Hilberseimer; the Barcelona Pavilion;
his last days in Chicago; returning to Germany via Japan and Russia;
his arrival in Germany; Mies and Hugo Haring; Mies and Heinrich
Tessenow; working in the armament industry; further study of architecture
in Darmstadt; Lilly Reich; his interest in technical problems;
the Edith Farnsworth House; and his work as an architect and engineer.
Architecture by Mies van der Rohe, exhibition at The Art
Institute of Chicago, 1938-1939.
Institutional Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Interview Excerpt
"We know Mies read a lot and thought intensively. The essentials
he would compress into a short, clear formula. There was no room
for speculation and rhetoric in his teaching. He was for the concrete,
he was for work. With the generation of 1968 he would not have
had much sympathy with their fixation on the sociological, psychological,
political, with their constant discussions, back-stabbing inquiries,
criticizing and so forth. He had had similar experiences when
he took over the Bauhaus from Hannes Meyer. The politically radical
students did not give up delivering noisy oratory in the cafeteria.
The classrooms and study rooms were empty. With a note of satisfaction,
Mies explained his first official activity: he had the cafeteria
closed and brought the students back to their workplaces. He liked
this story so much that he told it to me often, and in German.
We must have been alone then. Also in German, he related his efforts
of keeping the Bauhaus going in Berlin after the Nazi takeover.
He wanted architecture, not politics. He finally realized that
that would not be possible and that for the Nazis architecture
was also National Socialist politics. These conversations did
not fit with the image of Mies as the man of a few well-chosen
words. On these occasions, he even showed something like compassion.
Later I didn't remember specifics, but only my feelings of rage
and shame that we drove such a man as Mies out of Germany. Later,
the theme of architecture and politics occupied me very much."
(p.8)
Other Resources at The Art Institute of Chicago
Also see oral histories of architects who studied and taught
with Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology:
Jacques Brownson, Alfred
Caldwell, George Danforth, Joseph Fujikawa, Charles
Genther, Myron Goldsmith, James Hammond, Gertrude
Kerbis, Reginald Malcolmson,
Carter Manny, William
Priestley, Ambrose Richardson,
A. James Speyer, Gene
Summers, and Y. C. Wong.
Funding for this oral history was provided by the Seymour
H. Perksy Fund for Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago.
Publication of this oral history in web-accessible form was
made possible by the generous support of The Vernon and Marcia
Wagner Access Fund at The Art Institute of Chicago, The James &
Catherine Haveman Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Family Fund
of the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, and
Daniel Logan and The Reva and David Logan Foundation.
About the Chicago Architects Oral History Project
Department of Architecture • Ryerson & Burnham Archives
Send questions or comments to:
Ryerson & Burnham Archives, Chicago Architects Oral History Project
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