With Mies in Aachen

The last few times we've been in Aachen we've stayed in the city centre and this Christmas I realized that just around the corner from our apartment was the birth place of Mies van der Rohe or Maria Ludwig Michael Mies as he was actually baptised. So, of course, I had to seek it out.

It's a handsome enough apartment building in a street that has clearly seen better days with nothing apart from a small green plaque beside the entrance to tell you that anything of note happened there.

Somewhat incongruously, across the road and behind the spot where the picture is taken from, in what looks like a tin-roofed shack, is a Kurdish cultural centre. Judging by the crowd of men gathered outside something was going on there and it was difficult to get a good spot on the pavement to take a picture.

Mies left Aachen in 1905 and there is little there that I know of that celebrates one of the city's most famous sons. It was a long journey, in all possible senses, from Steinkaulstrasse 29 to this.