We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
The unformed is not worse than the over-formed. The former is nothing; the latter is mere appearance. Real form presupposes real life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that an absence of form is not inferior to an excess of form; true essence requires genuine life.
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe emphasizes the importance of authenticity in design and existence. He argues that an unformed state, while lacking a defined structure, is not necessarily worse than an over-formed entity which may be more about superficiality. The essence of something should be grounded in real life and authenticity, rather than just aesthetic or imposed structure.
Themes
AuthenticityDesignPhilosophyFormReal Life
In practice
Example use cases
In a design lecture discussing the importance of simplicity.
More from Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
All quotes βArchitecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
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.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
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.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
Reinforced concrete buildings are by nature skeletal buildings. No noodles nor armoured turrets. A construction of girders that carry the weight, and walls that carry no weight. That is to say, buildings consisting of skin and bones.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
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.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
Similar quotes
All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal, but with a near infinite capacity for folly. . . . He draws blueprints for Utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand--his own part comic, part tragic, part cussed, but part glorious nature.
Robert McnamaraRead
This place aint the same. It never will be. Maybe we've all got a little crazy. I guess if everbody went crazy together nobody would notice, what do you think?
Cormac MccarthyRead
If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
While the intelligence profession oftentimes demands secrecy, it is critically important that there be a full and open discourse on intelligence matters with the appropriate elected representatives of the American people.
John O. BrennanRead
A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation
Frank HerbertRead
I did not fully understand the dread term 'terminal illness' until I saw Heathrow for myself.
Dennis PotterRead