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" 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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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

" 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. "

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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Every How is carried by a What. "

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

" 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

" It must be possible to solve the task of controlling nature and yet simultaneously create a new freedom. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

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

" Less is more. "

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

" 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

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

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

" God is in the details. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

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 possible to go forward while looking back. "

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

" 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

" 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

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

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

" 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

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

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

" 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