Nothing can express the aim and meaning of our work better than

Host: The museum hall was silent except for the faint hum of the lights above. Marble floors reflected the dim golden glow, stretching between the white pillars like a mirror of eternity. Outside, the evening sky hung in shades of ash and violet, the city dissolving into shadows.

In the center of the room stood a single sculpture — raw, geometric, yet strangely human. Its edges cut through the light like frozen thoughts. Before it, two figures lingered.

Jack, hands in his pockets, his grey eyes tracing every line, every imperfection in the stone. Jeeny stood beside him, her arms crossed, her hair gleaming black against the pale walls. She looked not at the form, but through it — as if searching for something deeper than design.

Host: The air between them was thick with the kind of silence that belongs only to art — that sacred pause between truth and interpretation.

Jeeny: “Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said, ‘Nothing can express the aim and meaning of our work better than the profound words of St. Augustine — Beauty is the splendor of Truth.’”

Jack: (quietly) “Sounds poetic. But in the real world, truth doesn’t always come dressed in beauty. Sometimes it’s ugly as hell.”

Host: His voice was steady, almost detached, but beneath it — a flicker of something else: weariness, perhaps, or doubt carved too deeply to hide.

Jeeny: “That’s because you’re thinking of beauty as decoration, Jack. Mies didn’t mean that. He meant that real beauty — the kind that lasts — isn’t about perfection. It’s about honesty. When something is true, it’s beautiful because it cannot lie.”

Jack: “Honesty? You mean like the cracks in this sculpture? The ones the critics call ‘organic texture’? Looks more like a mistake to me.”

Jeeny: “But maybe that’s what makes it beautiful. The cracks reveal the truth of the material. The stone’s resistance — its struggle. Isn’t that honest?”

Host: The light shifted as a cloud passed outside, bathing the room in soft silver. For a moment, the sculpture seemed alive — the shadows moving across its surface like breathing.

Jack: “You sound like a philosopher. But you know what I see? I see a man who spent months carving a block just to prove he could make something ‘pure.’ Minimalism, they call it. You remove everything until you have nothing left but the ghost of an idea.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s where truth lives — in what’s left after everything false has been stripped away.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, sharp and clear, like a bell echoing in an empty cathedral.

Jack: “You’re saying beauty and truth are the same thing?”

Jeeny: “Not the same — reflections of each other. Like light on water. You can’t touch one without touching the other.”

Jack: “Then how do you explain the world? The lies that glitter, the truths that rot? You think there’s beauty in a factory collapse, or a lie told well enough to win elections?”

Jeeny: “No. But that’s the thing — those aren’t beautiful because they pretend to be true. Real beauty doesn’t need to persuade. It simply is. Like Mies’s buildings — all glass and steel, yet somehow spiritual. He let the structure speak honestly, without disguise.”

Jack: “I’ve seen those towers. Cold. Empty. Like cathedrals for machines.”

Jeeny: “Because you’re looking for warmth where there’s clarity. Mies believed that purity is warmth. That when you remove what’s unnecessary, you make space for light to enter.”

Host: Jack laughed softly, but it wasn’t mockery this time — it was the sound of a man realizing the argument was no longer just about architecture.

Jack: “So truth is light now? That’s convenient.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Think of Augustine — he saw beauty as the splendor of truth because truth illuminates. A lie keeps you in shadow. When you live truthfully, when your work, your art, your life align — you shine. Even if the world stays dark.”

Host: Her voice had softened, but her eyes burned with something bright and steady.

Jack: “You talk like you’ve never been broken.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Everyone’s been broken. But some people build beauty out of it.”

Host: The room grew still again. The sculpture, fractured yet whole, seemed to lean into their silence.

Jack: “So you’re saying this —” (gestures to the sculpture) “— is beautiful because it’s honest about its pain?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because it doesn’t hide the wound.”

Host: A faint wind drifted through the hall, carrying the smell of rain from the open doorway.

Jack: “Then maybe truth isn’t the splendor of beauty — maybe it’s the scar of it.”

Jeeny: “No. The scar is the splendor. It’s what proves something lived.”

Host: He turned, studying her face now, not the art. The light caught in her eyes, reflecting back a quiet conviction that words could never quite name.

Jack: “You really believe that truth makes things beautiful?”

Jeeny: “Not automatically. But when truth is seen — when it’s faced, not avoided — it creates beauty. Because it restores harmony. That’s what Mies meant by his architecture. Less isn’t less. It’s more of what’s real.”

Jack: “And what if the truth destroys the harmony instead?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that harmony was a lie.”

Host: Jack exhaled, long and slow, as if something heavy had just been set down between them.

Jack: “I used to think beauty was a luxury. Something we make when we have the time. But now… maybe it’s more like a compass. Something that points us back when we’ve lost direction.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Beauty isn’t vanity — it’s alignment. When the outer form matches the inner truth.”

Host: Outside, the rain had begun again, soft and rhythmic, tapping against the windows like a quiet heartbeat.

Jack: “So you think Mies built truth, not just buildings.”

Jeeny: “He built silence into noise. Order into chaos. His glass wasn’t cold — it was honest. Transparent. He gave the world the courage to see itself.”

Host: A faint smile touched Jack’s face, a rare one — not of irony, but of understanding.

Jack: “And Augustine gave him the words for it. Beauty is the splendor of truth. I guess even the saints and the architects were speaking the same language — just building different kinds of cathedrals.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. One used stone, the other spirit.”

Host: The museum lights dimmed slightly, signaling closing time. The shadows deepened, stretching long and soft across the floor.

Jack: “So what’s our cathedral, Jeeny? What do we build?”

Jeeny: “Whatever we make honest. Whatever we make whole.”

Host: Jack looked at her, then at the sculpture, then finally at his own hands — calloused, strong, trembling just slightly.

Jack: “Then maybe truth’s not something we find. Maybe it’s something we make beautiful — every day, piece by piece.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And beauty’s not vanity — it’s gratitude for having found it.”

Host: The rain stopped. The last light from the street slipped through the window, painting a soft glow across the sculpture’s fractured surface. The cracks gleamed now — not as flaws, but as veins of silver.

Host: Jack and Jeeny stood there, silent, their reflections merged in the glass before them.

Host: And in that stillness, Mies’s words seemed to whisper through the hall:
“Beauty is the splendor of Truth.”

Host: Perhaps that was the architect’s final lesson — that when we dare to live and build truthfully, even our ruins become radiant.