Mies, 1938

Something sent me to the bookshelf for the big thick book on Mies van der Rohe, Mies in America. I was looking for things he had said, and I found this, from a speech in 1938:

Let us guide our students over the disciplined path from materials through the practical aims of creative work.

Let us lead them into the healthy world of primitive buildings, where each axe stroke meant something and each chisel stroke made a real statement.

Where can we find greater clarity in structural connections than in wooden buildings of old?

Where else can we find such unity of material, construction and form?...

What feeling for material and what power of expression speaks in these buildings.

And buildings of stone as well: what natural feelings they express!

What a clear understanding of the material. What certainty in its use. What sense they had of what one could and could not do in stone. Where do we find such wealth of structure? Where do we find more healthy energy and natural beauty? With what obvious clarity a beamed ceiling rests on these old stone walls, and with what sensitivity one cut a doorway through these walls...

The brick is another teacher. How sensible is this small handy shape, so useful for every purpose.

What logic in its bonding, what liveliness in the play of patterns.

What richness in the simplest wall surface. But what discipline this material imposes.

Thus each material has its specific characteristics that one must get to know in order to work with it.

This is no less true of steel and concrete. We expect nothing from materials in themselves, but only from the right use of them.... Each material is only worth what we make of it.

Axe strokes. Chisel marks. Such unity of material, construction and form. Such wealth of structure. How sensible. What certainty, what logic, what liveliness. What richness. What discipline. What obvious clarity.