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.
Technology is far more than a method, it is a world in itself. As a method, it is superior in almost every respect. But only where it is left to itself, as in gigantic structures of engineering, there technology reveals its true nature.
If there really is no new way to be found, we are not afraid to stick with the old one that we found previously. So, I do not make every building different.
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.
What would life be like if everybody insisted you must have actually built such-and-such a thing by yourself? I'd be an old man and have nothing to show for the aging.
We made drawings the size of a whole quarter of a room ceiling, which we would then send on to the model makers. I did this every day for two years. Even now I can draw cartouches with my eyes closed.
Behrens had a great sense of the great form. that was his main interest; and that I certainly understood and learned from him.
A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous.
It must be possible to solve the task of controlling nature and yet simultaneously create a new freedom.
I discovered by working with actual glass models that the important thing is the play of reflections and not the effect of light and shadow, as in ordinary buildings.
We refuse to recognize problems of form, but only problems of building. Form is not the aim of our work, but only the result. Form, by itself, does not exist. Form as an aim is formalism; and that we reject.
In addition to the wishes of the client, the position, orientation, and size of the plot also play an important role in determining the final plan of the house. The 'where' and 'how' of the exterior then follows naturally from all of that.
I especially remember that on All Souls Day, when so many people wanted new monuments for the graves, our whole family pitched in. I did the lettering on the stones, my brother did the carving, and my sisters put the finishing touches on them, the gold leaf and all that.
We do not evaluate the result but the starting point of the creative process. Precisely, this shows whether the form was discovered by starting from life, or for its own sake. That is why I consider the creative process so essential. Life for us is the decisive factor.
We have to know that life cannot be changed by us. It will be changed. But not by us. We can only guide the things that can cause physical change.
The problem of architecture has always been the same throughout time. Its authentic quality is reached through its proportions, and the proportions cost nothing. In fact, most of them are proportions among things, not the things themselves. Art is almost always a question of proportions.
I really don't know the Chicago School. You see, I never walk. I always take taxis back and forth to work. I rarely see the city.
The building art is, in reality, always the spatial execution of spiritual decisions. It is bound to its times and manifests itself only in addressing vital tasks with the means of its times. A knowledge of the times, its tasks, and its means is the necessary precondition of work in the building art.