Architecture

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

1886— 1969

Less is more

Biography

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect who became one of the pioneers of modernist architecture. He served as the last director of the Bauhaus before emigrating to the United States, where he led the architecture program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mies developed an influential architectural style characterized by extreme clarity and simplicity, using modern materials like industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. His Barcelona Pavilion (1929) and Farnsworth House (1951) are considered masterpieces of the International Style.

Principles

#1 architecture

Less is more

Reduction is not absence but distillation. By removing the unnecessary, we reveal the essential structure. Every element that remains must justify its presence.

#2 architecture

God is in the details

Excellence emerges from attention to the smallest elements. A building's character depends on the precision of its joints, the alignment of its surfaces, the proportion of its spaces. Nothing is too small to matter.

#3 architecture

Structural honesty

A building should express how it works. The structure should be visible, not hidden behind decoration. Materials should appear as themselves, not disguised as something else.

#4 architecture

Universal space

Architecture should create spaces that can serve multiple purposes over time. Open floor plans and flexible partitions allow buildings to adapt to changing needs without structural modification.

Notable Quotes

"Less is more."

Attributed to Mies, though possibly derived from Robert Browning. Became his defining architectural philosophy.

"God is in the details."

On the importance of meticulous execution. Often misattributed to other architects.

"Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space."

On architecture as cultural expression.

"I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good."

On prioritizing quality over novelty.

"It is better to be good than to be original."

A variant of his stance against novelty for its own sake.

Legacy

Mies's aphorisms—"Less is more" and "God is in the details"—have transcended architecture to become universal design principles. His work demonstrated that reduction is not absence but rather the distillation of form to its most essential expression. The open floor plans he pioneered influenced not just buildings but how we think about workspace, information architecture, and user interfaces. His insistence on structural honesty—expressing how a building works through its form—parallels software principles like transparency and explainability.