We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
The long path from material through function to creative work has only one goal: to create order out of the desperate confusion of our time.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the journey of transforming raw material into meaningful creative expression amidst chaos.
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe highlights the creative process as a progression from the raw material through its functionality to the final artistic work. This journey is aimed at establishing order and clarity in a world that often feels disordered and chaotic, reflecting the essential role of creativity in making sense of our surroundings.
In practice
In a speech at an art exhibition discussing the importance of creativity in addressing societal issues.
We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.
Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.
There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And thro' the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
I think that when you decide to dedicate yourself to creative endeavors and surround yourself with people who are creative, you very quickly learn how hard it is to survive doing those kinds of things, not to mention make a living at them.
You canβt bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca, the Cathedral, the bordello. The shopping mall, the urinal, the discotheque. Iβm hardly speaking in metaphor. Itβs the most impermeable of cities. How does one convey all that?
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