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

"I dont want to be interesting; I want to be good."

Mies said this. 

It's almost as well known as "Less is more" and at least as mystifying.

The sayings about being good rather than interesting were recorded in the late '50s. But I suspect that he may have said it earlier, since it seems to have informed his designs much earlier.

It would be less mystical if we knew even roughly what he meant by good. Here's my guess. Mies had read St Thomas and St Augustine and while not a practicing Catholic or even Christian was apparently deeply influenced by their thinking and that of other neoPlatonists.  As I understand neoPlatonic thinking, something is beautiful or good to the degree that it is rational thus to the degree that it can be understood. 

(This is how I understand the stories I've read of Mies' reviews of students projects: after the student would present his work, Mies would say nothing and merely think about the student's presentation. Meanwhile the student would sweat bullets wondering if Mies would approve. After an uncomfortably long silence, Mies would express neither approval nor disapproval but merely ask the student to try again. It's not that the student had missed some core idea or principle. Maybe he had or maybe not: but Mies failed to see the rationale of the student's proposed structure.)

Much architecture of the last several decades is amazing, astounding, dazzling and stupefying. Full of unexpected triangles, curves, and forms that must require incredible engineering and fantastic construction techniques. (No, I won't give instances.) Maybe there are ideas behind them, but they certainly are interesting. I'm left wondering if they're any good.