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" 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

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" We have to know that life cannot be changed by us. It will be changed. But not by us. We can only guide the things that can cause physical change. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

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

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Every How is carried by a What. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Form as a goal always ends in formalism. For this striving is directed not towards an inside, but towards an outside. But only a living inside has a living outside. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" I discovered by working with actual glass models that the important thing is the play of reflections and not the effect of light and shadow, as in ordinary buildings. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

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

" 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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

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

" It is not possible to go forward while looking back. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" The idea of service leads to community. "

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

" When it becomes economically possible, building will become montage. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

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

" I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" The office building is a building for work, organization, lucidity and economy. Light, spacious working rooms, clearly arranged, undivided, only organized according to the pattern of the firm. "

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

" 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