Google's latest doodle pays tribute to one of the pioneers of modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe, who was born 126 years ago on Tuesday.

He died 42 years ago, but his steel and glass buildings can be found in most major American cities. His most famous buildings include the Seagram building in New York, the Museum of Fine Art in Houston, the Martin Luther King library in Washington DC and the National Gallery in Berlin.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born in Aachen, Germany in 1886. Along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, Mies was regarded as one of the masters of modern architecture. He was appointed director of the Bauhaus School of Architecture.

The Great Depression of 1929 meant there was little money for building and the rise of the Nazis meant there was little taste for Mies' modern style of architecture. The style of Bauhaus and Mies was seen as not "German" enough after 1933, and the Nazis closed the school.

Mies emigrated to the US in 1937, where he was appointed head of architecture of what was to become the Illinois Institute of Technology. His designs, and those of the students he influenced, have dominated American city centres from the 1950s until today.