“LESS IS...” deconstructs Mies’ 1941 flattened photomontage of the campus expansion proposal to reveal the complex and co-authored mechanics behind the campus expansion and the material record that was literally, figuratively, and necessarily suppressed—all in the name of progress. The vehicle of that suppression was the tabula rasa, enacted by an “apolitical” architect intent on creating an “apolitical” architecture. Taking its cues from the very spatial and ordering systems that govern Mies’ master plan—the 24-square-unit grid and flattening—” LESS IS...” reveals the same materials, narratives, and people that were suppressed, hidden, and covered over by the creation and maintenance of the Miesian myth adopted as official history.
