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
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
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
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
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
Wherever technology reaches its real fulfillment, it transcends into architecture. – 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
Education must lead us from the irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgment. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order. Therefore, let us guide our students over the road of discipline from materials, through function, to creative work. – 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
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
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
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
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
Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins. – 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