On Architects
Le Corbusier, in my opinion, was the person who created worldwide modern architecture as a standard. He did it through his books. Most of his projects were not built. Some were built. The Bauhaus was important, too. All the southern countries throughout the world were concrete countries and Le Corbusier's stuff came to them naturally. [Oscar] Niemeyer could never have done his building without having—he didn't study with Le Corbusier, but he had his books. Le Corbusier is the main teacher. He used to publish books in the late 1920s and early 1930s. They were the most exciting things. His style of drawing, his style of presenting was very contemporary. There was something—it was a new revelation.
Then, of course, Mies had a more sophisticated thing, but that came later. Mies didn't publish as early as Le Corbusier and also Mies didn't blossom really until he came to this country. Mies was the Mondrian of architecture, and Le Corbusier was the Picasso. That's very simple.
Walter Gropius was the Dean of the Harvard School of Architecture. Gropius was a very good talker and [knew the] great principles of what modern architecture should be, what modern anything should be. But I don't think he could design a doorknob. I think Breuer was the great designer. [For] the Bauhaus buildings, which are credited to Gropius, I think there must have been an assistant who was damn good. I've never seen any distinguished architecture [by] Gropius since. His own house, I'm sure Breuer designed it. Breuer turned out to be not only... a very important architect, but a magnificent teacher—probably the best architectural design teacher certainly in the first half of the century and maybe in the whole century... And he was loved by all his alumni... The main point about Gropius is Breuer.
I think Mies was a really great architect, and he built three or four magnificent buildings: the Tugendhat House, the Barcelona Pavilion, and the greatest office building built at any time, his Seagram Building. The Seagram Building was the result of years of refinement of detail, without a client, without a building. You know what I mean? I think he got too many commissions afterwards and they got a little repetitious. I think he was a man who should have built few buildings, and, of course, those three he built are so wonderful and will endure. There are very few architects who have three great buildings.
As far as his teaching, I think it produced nothing except a bunch of architects who could imitate him... The turning of the corner became the Bible. The man that could turn the corner with the proper mullions was a master. I think it was very limiting.
But I think his influence was more important than his teaching. You know, some people like to say that Lever House is Corbu. Others says it's Mies because it has thin mullions. And they're both full of baloney. It's modern and probably influenced by Corbu's pilotis and other things, period. But it's an insult to Le Corbusier. He would do a much more interesting building than Lever. So that's my feeling about Mies. I loved Mies as a man, and I think he was really a great human being. I think Le Corbusier was difficult, but probably intellectually more complex than Mies.
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