The Berlin section, which has been directed by Terence Riley, chief curator of the department of architecture and design at MoMA, in collaboration with Barry Bergdoll, professor of art history at Columbia University, is rich in the pre-1920s houses later written out of Mies's official history of himself.

WSJ: How Less Became More

"Until recently these frames were not seen as a valuable or interesting part of art history, " explains Alan Montgomery, head of the Frames Department at Bonhams, the London auction house.

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