Daily Inspiration Quote by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

A neat little rebuke to the design world’s addiction to novelty, Mies’s line draws a hard border between attention and excellence. “Interesting” is the seductive category: it flatters the viewer, promises a quick hit of surprise, and ages fast. It’s the architectural equivalent of a clever tweet - immediately legible, instantly shareable, and often hollow once the moment passes. By contrast, “good” is stubbornly unglamorous. It implies standards, discipline, and the willingness to disappear behind the work.

The subtext is almost puritan: the architect’s ego is the problem. Mies isn’t denying that buildings can be visually striking; he’s rejecting the idea that spectacle is the goal. In modernism, where critics and clients constantly demanded “the new,” this is a strategic narrowing of the brief. Good means proportion, material honesty, constructional clarity, and spaces that hold up under daily life - not just under a camera’s gaze. It also means ethics, quietly: if architecture shapes how people live, then chasing “interesting” can be a kind of irresponsibility, a preference for applause over use.

Context matters. Mies’s career runs through the churn of early-20th-century Europe, the Bauhaus ethos, and then America’s corporate modernity. His glass-and-steel rigor (Seagram Building, Farnsworth House) can look like minimal style, but the line reminds you it’s meant as moral posture: reduce, refine, repeat, until what’s left is necessary. The provocation is that “good” isn’t a vibe. It’s a verdict earned over time.