Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Quotes

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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Profession : Architect

Birth : March 27, 1886

When it becomes economically possible, building will become montage.

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 thought a lot and I controlled my thoughts in my work - and I controlled my work through my thoughts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The unformed is not worse than the over-formed. The former is nothing; the latter is mere appearance. Real form presupposes real life.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space. Living, Changing, New. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, only today can be given form. Only such architecture is creative.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe