Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of harmonizing our built environments with nature and humanity.
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe's quote reflects the idea that architecture and urban planning should not only accommodate human activity but also connect with the natural world. By advocating for a 'higher unity' among nature, buildings, and human beings, he suggests that a balanced coexistence can enhance our living experience and promote overall well-being.
In practice
In a speech at an environmental conference.
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.
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.
In nature we find not only that which is expedient, but also everything which is not so inexpedient as to endanger the existence of the species.
The time has come to link ecology to economic and human development. When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all. What is happening to the rain forests of Madagascar and Brazil will affect us all.
The world has different owners at sunrise... Even your own garden does not belong to you. Rabbits and blackbirds have the lawns; a tortoise-shell cat who never appears in daytime patrols the brick walls, and a golden-tailed pheasant glints his way through the iris spears.
When asked what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow, Martin Luther said, "I would plant a tree."
In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode, the peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed.
The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature.
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