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"Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art."
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"Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself."

"I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead."

"We shape our buildings thereafter they shape us."

"Rather than wait to see what the day or future holds, why not design and plan the future you want to experience?"

"Modern architecture predominately specializes in designing what are essentially dimly lit caves."

"We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us."

"Nothing - really, absolutely nothing - says more about Victorian Britain and its capacity for brilliance than that the century's most daring and iconic building was entrusted to a gardener."

"If you put enough closets together, you have enough space for a room. If you put enough rooms together, you have enough room for a house. If you put enough houses together, you have space for a town, then a city, then a nation, then a world."

"The reality of the building does not consist in the roof and walls but in the space within to be lived in."

"It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect."
Explore more quotes by Thom Mayne

"So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position."

"We only exist in terms of how we think we exist. Meaning every cultural development is fabricated and can be fabricated."

"I've learned that in order to achieve what I wanted, it made more sense to negotiate than to defend the autonomy of my work by pounding my fist on the table."

"The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art."

"Our idea of nature is increasingly being determined by scientific developments. And they have become decisive for our image of reality."

"The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value."

"But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour."
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