Mies van der Rohe,: Architecture and structure (Pelican book)

From the back cover: "Among the great personalities who have pioneered this century's revolution in building, Mies van der Rohe, for twenty years director of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, is the least theoretical, the most practical, and in many ways the most inspired. The son of a simple mason in Germany, he served an apprenticeship amid the dirt and noise of building sites. He comprehends materials perfectly, from the modest brick to the marble and onyx of his famous Barcelona Pavilion or the expanses of glass on the magnificient bronze-tinted Seagram Building in New York. For him structure is an overriding principle...This study by a distinguished American architect is taken from The Master Builders, described by Sir Herbert Read as 'a perceptive and exciting book.'"