Behrens had a great sense of the great form. that was his main interest; and that I certainly understood and learned from him.
In 1912, when I was working in The Hague, I first saw a drawing by Louis Sullivan of one of his buildings. It interested me.
After my time in Holland, an inner battle ensued in which I tried to free myself from the influence of Schinkelesque classicism.
I see in industrialization the central problem of building in our time. If we succeed in carrying out this industrialization, the social, economic, technical, and also artistic problems will be readily solved.
Industrialization of the building trade is a question of material. Hence the demand for a new building material is the first prerequisite.
It is not possible to go forward while looking back.
1926 was the most significant year. Looking back, it seems that it was not just a year in the sense of time. It was a year of great realisation or awareness. It seems to me that at certain times of the history of man, the understanding of certain situations ripens.
It must be understood that every architecture is bound to its time and manifests itself only in vital tasks and through the materials of its age. It has never been otherwise.
You cannot save wonderful towns. You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones.
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.
I do not think it is an advantage to build planned packaged houses. If you prefabricate a house completely, it becomes an unnecessary restriction.
You can teach students how to work; you can teach them technique - how to use reason; you can even give them a sense of proportions - of order. You can teach them general principles.
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 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.
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.
It took me a long time to understand the relationship between ideas and between objective facts. But after I clearly understood this relationship, I didn't fool around with other wild ideas. That is one of the main reasons why I just make my scheme as simple as possible.
When one looks at Nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it takes on a deeper significance than when one stands outside. More of Nature is thus expressed - it becomes part of a greater whole.
Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.
It must be possible to solve the task of controlling nature and yet simultaneously create a new freedom.
You can use up all the slums for new development. In all the cities of the world, there are large areas of these. Also, you can avoid the spread of these silly suburban houses. Chicago has thousands of them all over the place.
