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"You'd never think of taking a cab if you had to walk a mile down Chicago's Michigan Avenue. But in a bad city you take a cab just to go around the corner."
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"Chicago is a city of contradictions, of private visions haphazardly overlaid and linked together."
"I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s."
"After that, I started going downtown and doing a lot of theater shows in Chicago. When you go downtown there, it's like you're in New York, it's like going to Broadway."
"Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose."
"I was asked to come to Chicago because Chicago is one of our fifty-two states."
Explore more quotes by Helmut Jahn
"You don't know what the Chinese expect in the way of beauty. The presentation is just a farce. You come into a room filled with 50 people and they don't talk to you. There's very little interaction."
"We prefer synthetic rather than natural materials. Natural products are almost too valuable. Wood is much harder to produce than metal. And metal is recyclable, while wood isn't."
"Transparency is not the same as looking straight through a building: it's not just a physical idea, it's also an intellectual one."
"Sometimes I have to accept a job I don't really want. Hardly anybody comes up to you with a commission; it's all competitions these days."
"The architecture profession has lost a lot of its integrity, especially in the USA. The general architect here has no scruples, no ambitions."
"When I came to America in the '60s, it was the place to be. I wonder if I'd come here today."
"A building is hard to judge. It takes many years to find out whether it works. It's not as simple as asking the people in the office whether they like it."
"German and English firms operate internationally, while French firms do not. The only place where they all have work is in China. Anybody can sell himself in China!"
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