Ludwig Mies
Ludwig Mies
Born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies and known professionally as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or simply Mies, this German architect was responsible for such modernist masterpieces as the Barcelona Pavilion and the Czech Republic's Villa Tugendhat.
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth27 March 1886
dominates future great historical movement movements present represent rooted shape technology tends
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.
create form means nature task time work
Create form out of the nature of the task with the means of our time. This is our work.
building cannot save towns wonderful
You cannot save wonderful towns. You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones.
stick
If there really is no new way to be found, we are not afraid to stick with the old one that we found previously. So, I do not make every building different.
buildings greater structural wisdom
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.
carrying designs developed life practical
Most of our designs are developed long before there is a practical possibility of carrying them out. I do that on purpose and have done it all my life. I do it when I am interested in something.
almost among architecture art authentic cost problem quality question reached throughout time
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.
architect inevitably people
The architect must get to know the people who will live in the planned house. From their needs, the rest inevitably follows.
architecture epoch given translated
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.
directed ends form inside towards
Form as a goal always ends in formalism. For this striving is directed not towards an inside, but towards an outside. But only a living inside has a living outside.
age architecture carriers structures
Our utilitarian structures will mature into architecture only when, through their fulfillment of function, they become carriers of the will of the age.
beauty certainly lies
What finally is beauty? Certainly nothing that can be calculated or measured. It is always something imponderable, something that lies between things.
attempt beings beware bring color disrupt higher houses human interior life nature shall
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.
architecture depends field realm
Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.