Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
It is no use working with other architects. What can they do? Who does what?
The demands of the time for objectivity and functionality must be fulfilled. If that clearly happens, then the buildings of our day will convey the greatness of which the age is capable, and only a fool will maintain that they lack it.
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.
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.
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.
Industrialization of the building trade is a question of material. Hence the demand for a new building material is the first prerequisite.
The unformed is not worse than the over-formed. The former is nothing; the latter is mere appearance. Real form presupposes real life.
You cannot save wonderful towns. You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Behrens had a great sense of the great form. that was his main interest; and that I certainly understood and learned from him.
In addition to the wishes of the client, the position, orientation, and size of the plot also play an important role in determining the final plan of the house. The 'where' and 'how' of the exterior then follows naturally from all of that.
After my time in Holland, an inner battle ensued in which I tried to free myself from the influence of Schinkelesque classicism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Create form out of the nature of the task with the means of our time. This is our work.
Just as we acquaint ourselves with materials, and just as we must understand functions, we must become familiar with the psychological and spiritual factors of the day. No cultural activity is possible otherwise, for we are dependent on the spirit of our time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Architecture is a language. When you are very good, you can be a poetCollection: Architecture
No design is possible until the materials with which you design are completely understoodCollection: Design
It is better to be good than to be original.Collection: Be Good
We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself... New materials are not necessarily superior. Each material is only what we make it.Collection: Use
Architecture has the power to create order out of unholy confusion.Collection: Order
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. An architect of ability should be able to tell a client what he wants. Most of the time a client never knows what he wants.Collection: Children
We must be as familiar with the functions of our building as with our materials. We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be.Collection: Building
First you have to learn to do something, then you can go out and do it.Collection: Education
Architecture is the will of the age conceived in spatial terms.Collection: Age
If teaching has any purpose, it is to implant true insight and responsibility. Education must lead us from irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgement. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order.Collection: Teaching
Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.Collection: Real
Each material is only what we make it.Collection: Materials
The long path from material through function to creative work has only one goal: to create order out of the desperate confusion of our time.Collection: Order
God dwells in the details.Collection: Details
But what if we are dealing with fools?Collection: What If
We must have order, allocating to each thing its proper place and giving to each thing is due according to its nature.Collection: Order
Where can we find greater structural clarity than in the wooden buildings of the old. Where else can we find such unity of material, construction and form? Here the wisdom of whole generations is stored. What feelings for material and what power of expression there is in these buildings! What warmth and beauty they have! They seem to be echoes of old songs.Collection: Song
And just as we acquaint ourselves with materials, just as we must understand functions, so we must become familiar with the psychological and spiritual factors of our day. No cultural activity is possible otherwise; for we are dependent on the spirit of our time.Collection: Spiritual
[In art], less is more.Collection: Art