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" I really don't know the Chicago School. You see, I never walk. I always take taxis back and forth to work. I rarely see the city. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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" 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. "

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

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

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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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

" 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. "

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

" Every How is carried by a What. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

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

" 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

" 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

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

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

" 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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" It is no use working with other architects. What can they do? Who does what? "

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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe