Van der Rohe was one of those architects that changed the language of architecture, much the way Gehry introduced new forms for architectural consideration in design. One looks at Mies's early career and finds several very exciting projects of his. Two of my favorite buildings of all time are the Tungendhat House and the Barcelona Pavilion. The usage of materials in planar simplicity contribute so much to spatial definition and sensuality. Even the Seagram Tower is rather extraordinary, although simple (and today superfluous due to Miesian followers), it is still intriguing in its usage of that liquor-brown glass, as well as the detailing. Then comes Mies's later career, like the Martin Luther King Library in D.C. and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin... especially the Neue Nationalgalerie. It is really like he hates architecture by that point : it's just one big roof (about 14 feet deep, I believe) on 8 columns on the outside of the building (not at the corners) on a pedestal. No interior columns, no playful spatial definition through materiality. Nope, just a big roof on some columns, enclosed in glass. In fact, the roof was constructed on the ground, the columns attached at hinges, and the whole thing was lifted up and locked into place... ... he definitely hated architecture by that point.
Gehry's New World Center in South Beach, Miami is quite the same story. It's just a big white box with some glass walls, and with some curves thrown in here and there. Just like his proposal for the Eisenhower Memorial in D.C., it's like the man doesn't even try anymore. The Eisenhower Memorial looks like he just passed it off to his interns. Some would say he is maturing... that or he hates architecture.
So this is what architecture has turned into : just pass everything off to the interns and hope that somehow you still will win an award and end up in Architectural Record (i.e. Hadid), just because you were awesome at the beginning of your career. If it's all about the press coverage and awards, then architecture needs a serious rebirth. If it isn't dead, then the contractors will kill it no time.
Wasn't architectural supposed to remind of something eternal, like, oh, I don't know, the awesome things humans can build? Rather than these mere trifles of effort?
No seriously, this the Eisenhower Memorial proposal for D.C. :
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