THE KREFELD VILLAS

As historians Kent Kleinman and Leslie van Duzer show in this carefully researched, eminently readable study, sometimes it’s best not to take the architect at his word. Here they guide us through the two villas, which were converted into a joined museum of contemporary art after World War II. Each chapter begins with a study of an artist who has created a site-specific installation within the villas. By analyzing how Yves Klein, Sol LeWitt, Richard Serra, and Ernst Caramelle chose to engage Mies’s architecture, they arrive at a truly original understanding of these two forgotten masterworks.