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" 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

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" 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

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

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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" I thought a lot and I controlled my thoughts in my work - and I controlled my work through my thoughts. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

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 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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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

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

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

" 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

" 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. "

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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" 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. "

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

" 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

" 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

" I do not think it is an advantage to build planned packaged houses. If you prefabricate a house completely, it becomes an unnecessary restriction. "

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

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

" 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

" 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