Developed in conjunction with the Charlotte chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture + Film series investigates themes in modern and contemporary architecture through the lens of film.

On July 20, the Bechtler will screen the documentary, Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe, chronicling the life and works of the architect known for his “less is more” philosophy.

At 19, Mies van der Rohe left his home of Aachen, Germany to pursue an architectural career and by the age of 21, designed his first building, the Riehl House. During the 1930s, van der Rohe taught at the Bauhaus School of Art and Design in Berlin. In 1938, after the Nazis closed the school, he immigrated to Chicago where he became the Director of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and designed 22 buildings for the school.

Over the next three decades, in a radical break from the predominant beaux arts style, van der Rohe refined a distinctive, modernist architectural style emphasizing glass and steel in a variety of buildings, many of which creatively integrated surrounding public space. His structures include Manhattan's Seagram Building, Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie and Chicago's towering apartment houses on Lakeshore Drive.

Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe showcases more than 70 of the architect's buildings and features comments from architects Rem Koolhaas and Elizabeth Diller. Also highlighted are anecdotes from clients and neighbors of one of van der Rohe’s last buildings ­– a small, striking-looking gas station in Montreal.

A short presentation led by Thomas Forget, Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Program Coordinator of the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte, will precede the screening.

Running time: 56 minutes.

NEW TICKET PRICE

Tickets are now $8 for museum members and $10 for non-members. Cash bar and free light bites. Purchase tickets online, by phone 704.353.9200 or at the visitor services desk. An event reception begins at 6 p.m. in the Bechtler lobby followed by the presentation and film screening at 7 p.m.

Upcoming Architecture + Film Offerings

August 17 – Sketches of Frank Gehry

September 21 – Bird’s Nest: Herzog & de Meuron in China

October 19 – Philip Johnson: Diary of an Eccentric Architect

November 16 – Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture

Image: Seagram Building © Jeffery Howe, Boston College