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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Every How is carried by a What.”

“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.”

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

“Our utilitarian structures will mature into architecture only when, through their fulfillment of function, they become carriers of the will of the age.”

“Nothing can express the aim and meaning of our work better than the profound words of St. Augustine - 'Beauty is the splendor of Truth.'”

“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.”

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

“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.”

“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.”

“Less is more.”

“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.”

“Technology is far more than a method, it is a world in itself. As a method, it is superior in almost every respect. But only where it is left to itself, as in gigantic structures of engineering, there technology reveals its true nature.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”