The Reason to Read

I left school when I was fourteen years old, so I had no education. I worked for an architect. When I came to his office, he said, "Here is your table." I cleaned it up and looked in the drawer. What I found there were two things, a magazine called Die Zukunft. It was a weekly magazine. It was a very interesting magazine. It was partly a political magazine, but in the way as Walter Lippman would talk about politics, not a party affair. It was a cultural magazine, let us say that. It talked about music. It talked about poetry. It talked about Architecture, but very seldom. That was one thing.

Then I found another pamphlet about Pierre-Simon Laplace theory. That was these two things. From then on I started to read this magazine, Die Zunkunft. I bought it every Sunday morning and read it. Then I started to read.

A few years later, When I came to Berlin, I had to build a house for a philosopher. It was at the university in Berlin. There I met quite a number of people, and I started to read more and more. When this philosopher came to my office for the first time--I had an office in my apartment, and my books were lying on a huge drafting board, about a foot high--he looked around and he saw all these books. He said, "For heaven's sake, who advised you on your library?" I said, "Nobody. I started to buy books and read them." He was very surprised. He saw no discipline in it or anything like that.

At that time, we were working for Peter Behrens. There were other architects in Berlin. Alfred Messel, he was a very fine architect, but a Palladio man or something like that.

I was interested in what Architecture is. I asked somebody, "what is Architecture?" But he didn't answer me. He said, "Just forget it. Just work. You will find that out by yourself later." I said, "That's a fine answer to my question." But I wanted to know more. I wanted to find out. That was the reason I read; for nothing else. I wanted to find out things, I wanted to be clear. What is going on. What is our time and what is it all about. Otherwise, I didn't think we would be able to do something reasonable. In this way, I read a lot. I bought all these books and paid for them in all the fields.

by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

New York, 1955

Architect/Client Relationship

Never talk to a client about architecture. Talk to him about his children. That is simply a good politics. He will not understand what you have to say about architecture most of the time.

An architect of ability should be able to tell a client what he wants. Most of the time a client never knows what he wants.

He may, of course, have some very curious ideas, and I do not mean to say that they are silly ideas.

But being untrained in architecture they just cannot know what is possible and what is not possible.

by Mies van der Rohe

The Columns of Farnsworth House

..., all the exposed steel connections at the Farnsworth House are plug welds. Plug welding is an elaborate process: steel erectors first drill the columns with holes at the beam connections and fit the columns with erection seats; they then place the perimeter beam on these seats, shim the beam level, and clamp it secure; next, welders plug the vacant column holes, fusing the column to the beam; and finally, finishers remove the erection seats and sand all surfaces smooth. Curiously, these connections require a sequence of operations that demand a high degree of craft, yet each operation disappears with the next. The mechanical craft of the seated connection disappears with the industrial craft of welding, the industrial craft of welding disappears with the handcraft of sanding, and the handcraft of sanding disappears with its own operation. There is no glorification of technology in this curious sequence, just as there is no remnant of craft. To underscore this, the steel fabricators brushed the steel's surface free of burrs and the finishers painted the steel with successive coats of flat white enamel.

by Michael Cadwell

Strange Details

The Spirit of Our Time

Each material has its specific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it.

This is no less true of steel and concrete [than of wood, brick, and stone].

We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself.

New Materials are not necessarily superior.

Each material is only what we make of it.

We must be as familiar with the functions of our buildings as with our materials.

We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be.

And just as we acquaint ourselves with materials, just as we must understand functions, so we must become familiar with the psychological and spiritual factors of our day.

No cultural activity is possible otherwise; for we are dependent on the spirit of our time.

by Mies van der Rohe