It is the architect as artist that dominates these shows, from the bold strokes of black crayon on yellowing tracing paper that still carry the fresh images of those prismatic glass skyscrapers, transporting us back to the utopian visions of the 1920s, to the existential serenity of the delicate pencil sketches for the Illinois Institute of Technology campus.

WSJ: How Less Became More

The American section of the show, at the Whitney, organized by Phyllis Lambert with K. Michael Hays, adjunct curator of architecture, deals with Mies's development of modular construction, from the long, low buildings of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago campus, which he designed as head of its architecture department, to his high-rise apartments and offices and his ultimate vision, the resolution of structure and enclosure as monumental, universal space.

WSJ: How Less Became More