“Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.”
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.
“The American attitude towards efficiency and execution should always underlie architecture.”
“Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.”
“The architecture profession has lost a lot of its integrity, especially in the USA. The general architect here has no scruples, no ambitions.”
“Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”
“The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.”
“Of all the lessons most relevant to architecture today, Japanese flexibility is the greatest.”
“Maybe we can show government how to operate better as a result of better architecture. Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world.”
“To me, a building - if it's beautiful - is the love of one man, he's made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that.”
“I see the Beijing National Stadium as an architectural project. I accepted Herzog and De Meuron's invitation to collaborate on the design, and our proposal won the competition. From beginning to end, I stayed with the project. I am committed to fostering relationships between a city and its architecture.”
“French architecture always manages to combine the most magnificent underlying themes of architecture like Roman design, it looks to the community.”
“It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.”
“The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture.”
“We are stymied by regulations, limited choice and the threat of litigation. Neither consultants nor industry itself provide research which takes architecture forward.”
“A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress.”
“Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.”
“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.”