We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
You cannot save wonderful towns. You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones.
Interpretation
Preserving greatness requires creating new opportunities rather than clinging to the past.
This quote by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe emphasizes the idea that instead of trying to preserve existing wonderful towns as they are, one should focus on the creation of new towns that embody the same qualities. It suggests an acceptance of change and the importance of innovation and growth in ensuring the continuity of those wonderful attributes we cherish.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a community meeting focused on urban development and revitalization.
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.
We can choose to use our lives for others to bring about a better and more just world for our children. People who make that choice will know hardship and sacrifice. But if you give yourself totally to the non-violence struggle for peace and justice you also find that people give you their hearts and you will never go hungry and never be alone. And in giving of yourself you will discover a whole new life full of meaning and love.
If you look at a great city, one of its amazing features is that you're going to find all sorts of things that you might not specifically have chosen in advance. And they will change your day. Maybe your month. Maybe your whole life.
There's no happy ending where we prevent climate change any more. Now the question is, is it going to be a miserable century or an impossible one, and what comes after that.
I've been involved in social activism my entire life, and I would argue that many people involved in social activist movements have done very little work on themselves.
Nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity.
Nothing is going to change, unless someone does something soon
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