Top 55 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Quotes

Create form out of the nature of the task with the means of our time. This is our work.

Behrens had a great sense of the great form. that was his main interest; and that I certainly understood and learned from him.

If one limits to developing only the kitchen and bathroom as standardized rooms because of their installation, and then also decides to arrange the remaining living area with movable walls, I believe that any justified living requirements can be met.

1926 was the most significant year. Looking back, it seems that it was not just a year in the sense of time. It was a year of great realisation or awareness. It seems to me that at certain times of the history of man, the understanding of certain situations ripens.

I hope you will understand that architecture has nothing to do with the inventions of forms. It is not a playground for children, young or old. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.

I especially remember that on All Souls Day, when so many people wanted new monuments for the graves, our whole family pitched in. I did the lettering on the stones, my brother did the carving, and my sisters put the finishing touches on them, the gold leaf and all that.

Most of our designs are developed long before there is a practical possibility of carrying them out. I do that on purpose and have done it all my life. I do it when I am interested in something.

Where can we find greater structural clarity than in the wooden buildings of old? Where else can we find such unity of material, construction and form? here, the wisdom of whole generations is stored.

After my time in Holland, an inner battle ensued in which I tried to free myself from the influence of Schinkelesque classicism.

Industrialization of the building trade is a question of material. Hence the demand for a new building material is the first prerequisite.

You cannot save wonderful towns. You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones.

The unformed is not worse than the over-formed. The former is nothing; the latter is mere appearance. Real form presupposes real life.

A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous.

We do not evaluate the result but the starting point of the creative process. Precisely, this shows whether the form was discovered by starting from life, or for its own sake. That is why I consider the creative process so essential. Life for us is the decisive factor.

You can use up all the slums for new development. In all the cities of the world, there are large areas of these. Also, you can avoid the spread of these silly suburban houses. Chicago has thousands of them all over the place.

It is not architectural achievement that makes the structures of earlier times seem to us so full of significance but the circumstance that antique temples, Roman basilicas, and even the cathedrals of the Middle Ages are not the works of single personalities but creations of entire epochs.

Modern buildings of our time are so huge that one must group them. Often the space between these buildings is as important as the buildings themselves.

It is much better to have just one idea, and if the idea is clear, then you can fight for it. That is how you can get things done.

Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.

Nothing can express the aim and meaning of our work better than the profound words of St. Augustine – ‘Beauty is the splendor of Truth.’

True education is concerned not only with practical goals but also with values. Our aims assure us of our material life, our values make possible our spiritual life.

I do not oppose form, but only form as a goal.

Our utilitarian structures will mature into architecture only when, through their fulfillment of function, they become carriers of the will of the age.

It is a hopeless endeavor to make the form and content of earlier architectural epochs usable for our time; in this, even the strongest artistic talent must fail. We see repeatedly how the outstanding builders fail to achieve an effect because their work does not serve the will of the age.

God is in the details.

I see in industrialization the central problem of building in our time. If we succeed in carrying out this industrialization, the social, economic, technical, and also artistic problems will be readily solved.

If there really is no new way to be found, we are not afraid to stick with the old one that we found previously. So, I do not make every building different.

Cheese was the staple. Bread you brought from home. The Schnaps came later. At the end of the week when people got paid, that’s when you got your Schnaps, lots of it, five Pfennige a shot.

Nature, too, shall live its own life. We must beware not to disrupt it with the color of our houses and interior fittings. yet we should not attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together into a higher unity.

I think that an industrial process is not like a rubber stamp. Everything has to be put together and, as such, should have its own expression.

When one looks at Nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it takes on a deeper significance than when one stands outside. More of Nature is thus expressed – it becomes part of a greater whole.

Technology is rooted in the past. It dominates the present and tends into the future. It is a real historical movement – one of the great movements which shape and represent their epoch.

The building art is man’s spatial dialogue with his environment and demonstrates how he asserts himself therein and how he masters it.

We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.

Every How is carried by a What.

Architecture depends on its time. It is the crystallization of its inner structure, the slow unfolding of its form.

When it becomes economically possible, building will become montage.

Less is more.

Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.

Generally, I think my work has so much influence because of its reasonableness.

The tendency of our time is wholly oriented toward the secular. The efforts of the mystics will remain episodes. Despite a deepening of our conceptions of life, we will build no cathedrals.

Simply by not owning three medium-sized castles in Tuscany I have saved enough money in the last forty years on insurance premiums alone to buy a medium-sized castle in Tuscany.

I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good.

What finally is beauty? Certainly nothing that can be calculated or measured. It is always something imponderable, something that lies between things.

It must be understood that every architecture is bound to its time and manifests itself only in vital tasks and through the materials of its age. It has never been otherwise.

Just as we acquaint ourselves with materials, and just as we must understand functions, we must become familiar with the psychological and spiritual factors of the day. No cultural activity is possible otherwise, for we are dependent on the spirit of our time.

In addition to the wishes of the client, the position, orientation, and size of the plot also play an important role in determining the final plan of the house. The ‘where’ and ‘how’ of the exterior then follows naturally from all of that.

Wherever technology reaches its real fulfillment, it transcends into architecture.

The problem of architecture has always been the same throughout time. Its authentic quality is reached through its proportions, and the proportions cost nothing. In fact, most of them are proportions among things, not the things themselves. Art is almost always a question of proportions.

Means must be subsidiary to ends and to our desire for dignity and value.

Education must lead us from the irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgment. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order. Therefore, let us guide our students over the road of discipline from materials, through function, to creative work.

Not yesterday, not tomorrow, only today can be given form. Only this architecture creates.

What would life be like if everybody insisted you must have actually built such-and-such a thing by yourself? I’d be an old man and have nothing to show for the aging.

Technology is far more than a method, it is a world in itself. As a method, it is superior in almost every respect. But only where it is left to itself, as in gigantic structures of engineering, there technology reveals its true nature.

In 1912, when I was working in The Hague, I first saw a drawing by Louis Sullivan of one of his buildings. It interested me.