"Ludwig Mies van der Rohe has long been recognized as one of the four founding masters of twentieth-century architecture," wrote Kenneth Frampton in the preface to Mies van der Rohe by David Spaeth. The other three in that legion of honor are Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier. None of those, however, are so strongly associated with the modern architecture that has been manifested in cities around the world as is Mies. He was called the "apostle of modernism in architecture" by Richard Liebmann-Smith in the Smithsonian. His place in the pantheon of modern architecture is assured, as Ricardo L. Castro wrote in Queen's Quarterly: "There are few personalities in the history of Western architecture whose names have been appropriated to designate such an important and rich phase of building activity." Mies, according to Castro, in addition to being a "profound thinker, devoted artist, and inspiring...