mies is not unmixed

k.michael hays has partly replied to some of my questions...

why 3410, m&M are not transparent?
why there is so much of the program on the basement of Crownhall?
and so on

...9 years ago in the "beyond Mies" symposium held in IIT related to the MTCC competition!

k.michael hays reveals the contradictory in mies's work- very relevant today*- by giving examples like the skyscraper project- illustrated in the "remix mies" text of eiconographia.com, IIT campus master plan, IIT buildings, crownhall and others.
he proves that in each case the work is not an autonomous object; its not "the utopia of the unmixed" that we might think so far.
the projects have the simultaneity of engaging and negating the context.

in the image of IIT campus (1940), taken from here, hays indicates how the grid of chicago (and the midwest) is apparent in the new IIT grid.
rem is also mentioning in his content book the quality of "ambiguous" urbanisme "between object and tissue" (on page 182).

*to propose how much architecture should engage-resist society today, he uses the metaphor of the "homeopathic poison": "just enough of it, in order to produce a way out of it".