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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Quotes

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

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

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

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

– 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

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

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

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.

– 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

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

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.

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

– Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Every How is carried by a What.

– 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

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

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

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

After my time in Holland, an inner battle ensued in which I tried to free myself from the influence of Schinkelesque classicism.

– 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

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

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

– 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

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

– 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

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

You cannot save wonderful towns. You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones.

– 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

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

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

– Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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