We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The spaces between modern buildings are as significant as the buildings themselves.
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe emphasizes the importance of the spaces that separate modern architecture, suggesting that these areas play a crucial role in the overall experience and functionality of urban environments. In contemporary architecture, the relationship between structures and their surrounding spaces can greatly influence how we perceive and interact with our surroundings.
Themes
ArchitectureUrban SpaceDesignModernismBuildings
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on urban planning, one might quote Mies Van Der Rohe to highlight the significance of thoughtful design.
More from Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
All quotes →Architecture 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
It is not architectural achievement that makes the structures of earlier times seem to us so full of significance but the circumstance that antique temples, Roman basilicas, and even the cathedrals of the Middle Ages are not the works of single personalities but creations of entire epochs.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
Similar quotes
If you look at the Earth without architecture, its sometimes a little bit unpleasant. So there is this basic human need to do shelter in the broadest sense of the word, whether its a movie theater or a simple log cabin in the mountains. This is the core of architecture: To provide a space for human beings.
Peter ZumthorRead
Modernist buildings exclude dialogue, and the void that they create around themselves is not a public space but a desertification
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A building should appear to grow easily from its site and be shaped to harmonize with its surroundings if Nature is manifest there.
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I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.
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If architecture is going to nudge, cajole, and inspire a community to challenge the status quo into making responsible changes, it will take the subversive leadership of academics and practitioners who keep reminding students of the profession’s responsibilities.
Samuel MockbeeRead
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
Winston ChurchillRead