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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" The architect must get to know the people who will live in the planned house. From their needs, the rest inevitably follows. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Architecture begins when you place two bricks carefully together. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Each material has its specific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it. This is no less true of steel and concrete. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" The demands of the time for objectivity and functionality must be fulfilled. If that clearly happens, then the buildings of our day will convey the greatness of which the age is capable, and only a fool will maintain that they lack it. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Never talk to a client about architecture. Talk to him about his children. That is simply good politics. he will not understand what you have to say about architecture most of the time. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Reinforced concrete buildings are by nature skeletal buildings. No noodles nor armoured turrets. A construction of girders that carry the weight, and walls that carry no weight. That is to say, buildings consisting of skin and bones. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" It took me a long time to understand the relationship between ideas and between objective facts. But after I clearly understood this relationship, I didn't fool around with other wild ideas. That is one of the main reasons why I just make my scheme as simple as possible. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Nothing can express the aim and meaning of our work better than the profound words of St. Augustine - 'Beauty is the splendor of Truth.' "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" We refuse to recognize problems of form, but only problems of building. Form is not the aim of our work, but only the result. Form, by itself, does not exist. Form as an aim is formalism; and that we reject. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" You can teach students how to work; you can teach them technique - how to use reason; you can even give them a sense of proportions - of order. You can teach them general principles. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Architecture is always the will of the age conceived as space - nothing else. Until this simple truth is clearly recognized, the struggle over the foundation of a new architecture confident in its aims and powerful in its impact cannot be realized; until then, it is destined to remain a chaos of uncoordinated forces. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" We made drawings the size of a whole quarter of a room ceiling, which we would then send on to the model makers. I did this every day for two years. Even now I can draw cartouches with my eyes closed. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe