Mies van der Rohe: advice about design

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good. At the Bauhaus, Gropius never let them forget truth. He taught: Truth goes beyond structure. Structure, he said, just keeps things from falling down. Truth must give them beauty. Whatever is is a joy forever. Whatever conceals -- hides -- behind a curtain does not sing. ``Sonnets are made, Degas,'' Mallarm'e once said, ``not with ideas but with words.'' And Anna Sokolow told her dance class: ``Movements never lie.'' Let the line be honest, Mies van der Rohe learned. Show the grain of the wood. Truth -- poised, like a dancer on the face of the earth: Not be interesting. Be good.