Quotes from 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.

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.

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

Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.

Industrialization of the building trade is a question of material. Hence the demand for a new building material is the first prerequisite.

Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.

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

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.

Not yesterday, not tomorrow, only today can be given form. Only this architecture creates.

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.

I hope you will understand that architecture has nothing to do with the inventions of forms. It is not a playground for children, young or old. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.

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.

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.

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.

The building art is man's spatial dialogue with his environment and demonstrates how he asserts himself therein and how he masters it.

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

Behrens had a great sense of the great form. that was his main interest; and that I certainly understood and learned from him.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.