Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Quotes

There is a profound ethic to architecture which is different from the other arts.

For me, architecture is the means, not the end. It's a means of making different life forms possible.

The future of architecture is culture.

Somehow, architecture alters the way we think about the world and the way we behave. Any serious architecture, as a litmus test, has to be that.

When I was in architecture school at Princeton, the worst thing you could say about someone was that they were eclectic.

I think architecture, to be really intense and fulfilling, doesn't have to be large.

I think architecture has to be a gift.

I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums, concert halls and civic buildings.

Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.

Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.

Architecture belongs to culture, not to civilization.

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

The ultimate goal of the architect...is to create a paradise. Every house, every product of architecture... should be a fruit of our endeavour to build an earthly paradise for people.

Architecture is measured against the past; you build in the future, and you try to imagine the future.

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.

Architecture has always been a very idealistic profession. It's about making the world a better place, and it works over the generations because people go on vacation and they look for it.

I think architecture is rarely the product of a single ideology. It's more like it can be shaped by a really big idea. It can accommodate a lot of life forms.

I've always seen architecture as a healing art, not just as a beautification art.

I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.

For many years, I have lived uncomfortably with the belief that most planning and architectural design suffers for lack of real and basic purpose. The ultimate purpose, it seems to me, must be the improvement of mankind.

Buildings in modern cities have lost their metaphoric aspect. Much contemporary architecture is very fragmented and busy on the outside. It's like a skin or a skull, but you don't know what's inside.

Although we're architects, we believe we do culture; architecture is culture, and the topics we tackle will always arise a broader debate.

I have tried to get close to the frontier between architecture and sculpture and to understand architecture as an art.

Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.