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" 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

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" 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

" 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

" Less is more. "

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

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

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

" 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

" The building art is, in reality, always the spatial execution of spiritual decisions. It is bound to its times and manifests itself only in addressing vital tasks with the means of its times. A knowledge of the times, its tasks, and its means is the necessary precondition of work in the building art. "

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

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

" We must understand the motives and forces of our time and analyze their structure from three points of view: the material, the functional, and the spiritual. We must make clear in what respects our epoch differs from others and in what respects it is similar. "

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

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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

" Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins. "

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

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

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

" Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space. "

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe