“The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.”
Buildings shape how we live, work, and think. These quotes from architects, designers, and urban thinkers explore the relationship between structure and human experience — how the spaces we create end up creating us in return.
“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.”
“The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.”
“To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It's a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.”
“I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.”
“The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.”
“I see music as fluid architecture.”
“All architecture is great architecture after sunset perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
“The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.”
“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”
“A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.”
“Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have.”
“Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.”
“Organic architecture seeks superior sense of use and a finer sense of comfort, expressed in organic simplicity.”
“Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.”
“Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place?”
“Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book.”