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Quotes by Architect
"The delusion of entertainment is devoid of meaning. It may amuse us for a bit, but after the initial hit we are left with the dark feeling of desolation."
63
"In addressing a task, one almost always has several possible options, sometimes only a few, and they may all be practical and functional. But they lack the aesthetic aspect that raises it to architecture."
62
"A good engineer thinks in reverse and asks himself about the stylistic consequences of the components and systems he proposes."
62
"Escape from the architecture ghetto is one of the major drivers and has been from the very beginning."
62
"If you live in a squalid environment, then of course you are going to want to get out of it, you are probably going to want to get into the country, because that's what it does."
62
"Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands."
62
"In the crowded and difficult conditions of a steep hillside, houses have had to struggle to establish their territory and to survive."
61
"The tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before."
61
"The computer offers another kind of creativity. You cannot ignore the creativity that computer technology can bring. But you need to be able to move between those two different worlds."
61
"It is not possible to live in this age if you don't have a sense of many contradictory forces."
61
"When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space."
61
"Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today."
61
"The speed of change makes you wonder what will become of architecture."
61
"The thing is that I have a really intense, almost compulsive need to record. But it doesn't end there, because what I record is somehow transformed into a creative thing. There is a continuity. Recording is the beginning of a conceptual production. I am somehow collapsing the two - recording and producing - into a single event."
60
"I feel coming on a strange disease - humility."
60
"The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast; the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding."
60
"Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times."
60
"The corridor is hardly ever found in small houses, apart from the verandah, which also serves as a corridor."
60
"I believe very strongly, and have fought since many years ago - at least over 30 years ago - to get architecture not just within schools, but architecture talked about under history, geography, science, technology, art."
60
"Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place?"
60
"One of our theories is that one can offset this excessive compulsion toward the spectacular with a return to simplicity."
60
"It's a fantastic responsibility and a wonderful moment."
59
"The photographs were never about me. They were always about the people who were laying their lives on the line for basic civil rights. I look back and I can't believe there was ever a time in this country when ANY citizen could not vote. The times were appalling."
59
"Wherefore the mere practical architect is not able to assign sufficient reasons for the forms he adopts; and the theoretic architect also fails, grasping the shadow instead of the substance."
59
"Harvard takes perfectly good plums as students, and turns them into prunes."
59
"And you finally get to a consensus, where you get a sense of what really ought to be done, and then they give it to me and then I draw it. I mean draw it in the sense, the philosophical sense."
59
"Temporarily in 1934 I became a department head in the German Labor Front and dealt with the improvement of labor conditions in German factories. Then I was in charge of public works on the staff of Hess. I gave up both these activities in 1941."
59
"In the Scottish Orkneys, the little stone houses with their single large room and central hearth had an extraordinary range of built-in furniture."
59
"The only other thing which I think is important is: Don't write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way."
58
"When air conditioning, escalators, and advertising appeared, shopping expanded its scale, but also limited its spontaneity. And it became much more predictable, almost scientific. What had once been the most surprising became the most manipulated."
58
"I grow dizzy when I recall that the number of manufactured tanks seems to have been more important to me than the vanished victims of racism."
58
"People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course, that's both liberating and alarming."
58
"Because of this, originality consists in returning to the origin."
58
"I've always thought Blues Point Tower is one of my best buildings and I stand by that."
58
"If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness."
58
"Human requirements are the inspiration for art."
58
"When you look at Japanese traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature - this very unique to Japan."
57
"What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority."
57
"I've never looked at a suburban building as being a minor building and an urban building as being a major building."
57
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