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Quotes by Architect
"When shopping was still connected to the street it was also an intensification and articulation of the street. Now it has become utterly independent - contained, controlled, surveyed."
Now,
44
"Then I sit down, work at it, because now I have a convincing feeling about what that place wants to be, you see? And it's not just me. Me and my talent comes in taking that consensus and then making something wonderful out of it - a work of art."
44
"Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of architecture that belongs to his college, it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul."
44
"Victorian architecture in the United States was copied straight from England."
44
"I am going to be working on bathroom fittings for a company in the USA, and then I thought it was appropriate to simplify the fittings and, thus, lowering the cost."
44
"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."
44
"Simply by not owning three medium-sized castles in Tuscany I have saved enough money in the last forty years on insurance premiums alone to buy a medium-sized castle in Tuscany."
43
"People always ask about my influences, and they cite a bunch of people I've never heard of."
43
"When you look at a city, it's like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it."
43
"Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious."
43
"I see architecture not as Gropius did, as a moral venture, as truth, but as invention, in the same way that poetry or music or painting is invention."
43
"At the age of 80, I'm becoming a visual artist. This could be my rebirth."
43
"Youth is a quality, not a matter of circumstances."
43
"Life always rides in strength to victory, not through internationalism... but only through the direct responsibility of the individual."
43
"We are yet to have a conscience at all about the exploitation of human cultures."
43
"After World War II great strides were made in modern Japanese architecture, not only in advanced technology, allowing earthquake resistant tall buildings, but expressing and infusing characteristics of traditional Japanese architecture in modern buildings."
43
"And it is very moving because one has to see the site not as just another site of development but it is a very special site. It is a site that souls and hearts of all Americans."
43
"Winning a competition in architecture is a ticket to oblivion. It's just an idea. Ninety-nine per cent never get built."
43
"Liquid architecture. It's like jazz - you improvise, you work together, you play off each other, you make something, they make something. And I think it's a way of - for me, it's a way of trying to understand the city, and what might happen in the city."
43
"Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart."
43
"All sensible Army people turned gas warfare down as being utterly insane since, in view of your superiority in the air, it would not be long before it would bring the most terrible catastrophe upon German cities, which were completely unprotected."
43
"Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture."
43
"No doubt concentration camps were a means, a menace used to keep order."
43
"But now I know that it is very important that all buildings should be consistent, that this is the quality of the Gothic cathedral, for instance, that we like."
43
"Part of our western outlook stems from the scientific attitude and its method of isolating the parts of a phenomenon in order to analyze them."
43
"A good book written for children can be read by adults."
43
"There aren't many American directors here trying to direct a Japanese yakuza film. When you combine that with the fact that I don't speak much Japanese and this was an independent film I was financing myself - people were curious about what I was doing."
42
"Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture."
42
"So what we have tried to do in our later buildings is to try to be completely consistent, as a painter is consistent or as a sculptor is consistent. Architecture also must be very consistent."
42
"A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous."
42
"In other words, each piece of the building must look as though it was designed for that particular building."
42
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