“This great, though disastrous, culture can only change as we begin to stand off and see... the inveterate materialism which has become the model for cultures around the world.”
Change
“The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe.”
ArchitectureAll Quotes by Arthur Erickson
“Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture.”
Architecture“The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.”
Architecture“No wonder the film industry started in the desert in California where, like all desert dwellers, they dream their buildings, rather than design them.”
Design“Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.”
Architecture“No phenomenon can be isolated, but has repercussions through every aspect of our lives. We are learning that we are a fundamental part of nature's ecosystems.”
Learning“Only when inspired to go beyond consciousness by some extraordinary insight does beauty manifest unexpectedly.”
Beauty“Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.”
Architecture“We have today a fairly thorough knowledge of the early Greco-Roman period because our motivations are the same.”
Knowledge“The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe.”
Architecture“Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today.”
Technology“Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us.”
Architecture“After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared.”
Design“Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.”
Architecture“Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place?”
Architecture“Modernism released us from the constraints of everything that had gone before with a euphoric sense of freedom.”
Freedom“Inspiration in Science may have to do with ideas, but not in Art. In art it is in the senses that are instinctively responsive to the medium of expression.”
Science“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.”
History“There is little doubt that we are in the midst of a revolution of a much more profound and fundamental nature than the social and political revolutions of the last half century.”
Nature“I plead for conservation of human culture, which is much more fragile than nature herself. We needn't destroy other cultures with the force of our own.”
Nature