quotations about architecture
The most strategic pathology of modern architecture is its split personality. While it is the profession that lays claim to perhaps the most basic human need, it long ago traded in the staid certainty of presiding over dwelling in favor of the vitality of an identity crisis.
TROY CONRAD THERRIEN
"Review: Prometheus Unfounded", The Architects Newspaper, February 28, 2016
Architecture is, to a certain extent, a sensual gratification. It addresses itself to the eye, and affords the best scope for the parade of barbaric pomp and splendour. It is the form in which the revenues of a semi-civilized people are most likely to be lavished. The most gaudy and ostentatious specimens of it, and sometimes the most stupendous, have been reared by such hands. It is one of the first steps in the great march of civilization.
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
History of the Conquest of Mexico
Architecture is a discipline that requires a deep cultural, sociological, economical, political and ethical understanding of the world. This is what students need to learn because, when we are in a state of crisis like we are today, we have to rethink the world.
ODILE DECQ
"Odile Decq wins Jane Drew prize for women in architecture", Dezeen, March 2, 2016
Architecture is essentially an aesthetic art, and ... our goal is to essentially broaden and deepen human experience, and we do that primarily through creating aesthetic situations.
COY HOWARD
"Coy Howard, interviewed by SCI-Arc students: part 2 of 3", Archinect, March 16, 2016
Every major enterprise begins with one step at a time. I think we--as a profession, as a discipline--are really far away from impact. On the more artistic and cultural end of the spectrum of architecture, the value proposition is to do something as original as possible. The attitude is "Never before, never again." ... At [the other] end of the spectrum, the value proposition is exactly the opposite. In public policy, the more anchored you are in the society, the better. The way you describe your value proposition is not by saying, "This has not been done before." You attempt to say exactly the opposite: "This has been attempted here and here and there and there." If there are many people trying to do something, it may mean that that work is relevant to a society. Your outcome should be as replicable and repeatable as possible. The difficulty of what we have in front of us is that architecture should not have to choose one or the other; it should be able to create something that is simultaneously at both ends. It happens very rarely, but it happens--those moments where architecture is both about impact and uniqueness, about being anchored and being original. It's about responding to circumstances and yet not being the sole consequence of those circumstances.
ALEJANDRO ARAVENA
"Q&A: Alejandro Aravena", Metropolis, March 17, 2016
Architecture is both an art and a science. It is an art because it makes man an artistic and creative animal that has the ingenuity in making his dream a reality. He builds and lives on what he built and he calls it architecture. It is a science because just like other sciences, its foundation is based on a serious study and progresses through experimentation wherein designs are discovered, adapted and transformed.
VER F. PACETE
"Architecture in Silay", Bacolod Sun Star, February 25, 2016
Architecture is the printing press which gives a history to the state of society of all ages.
LADY MORGAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.
LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE
speech delivered to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, 1950
Architecture, either practically considered or viewed as an art of taste, is a subject so important and comprehensive in itself, that volumes would be requisite to do it justice. Buildings of every description, from the humble cottage to the lofty temple, are objects of such constant recurrence in every habitable part of the globe, and are so strikingly indicative of the intelligence, character, and taste of the inhabitants, that they possess in themselves a great peculiar interest for the mind.
A. J. DOWNING
attributed, Day's Collacon
Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON
The Architecture of Happiness
For me the real task of every creative individual is the preservation of diversity so it should be our responsibility to essentially do things which are unique in the world and to have unique points of view rather than stereotypical views -- right now the computer and other factors have really made architecture a tribal art. Many architects are practicing at a tribal level of common values. And I think that is really not the best way for the world to go, formally, socially, politically, and culturally.
COY HOWARD
"Coy Howard, interviewed by SCI-Arc students: part 2 of 3", Archinect, March 16, 2016
Now, of course, architecture is a blind spot of our life in America today. How many millions of students go to the university to be educated? They come away conditioned, not enlightened, and they know nothing of architecture, although they have a department somewhere around -- probably in the basement.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Truth Against the World
If I look at the 50 years I've had in this profession, I'd say I emerged as a young architect during an era--the modern movement, the work of the 40s and 50s--that was extremely socially conscious, but not very effective in what it was proposing. But then I think there were 20, 30 years that were extremely permissive, that were influenced by the culture of branding and commerce, that gave rise to words like wow effect, starchitect, iconic building. At it's best, they're great cultural and community focal points. At their worst, they ignore urban issues. I think at this point, we're going back full cycle. There's much more sensitivity and awareness of urban design issues. Humanistic issues, the realization that there's a limit to energy and resources, has created altogether a greater sensitivity to nature. The very term green architecture, which is a term that's abused a little bit--some people think doing a presentation with the color green makes it green architecture--shows there's a desire to find a way to fuse nature with the urban environment, the architecture of gardens.
MOSHE SAFDIE
"Moshe Safdie Is Still Designing the Future of City Living", Curbed, February 23, 2016
Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.
LOUIS KAHN
attributed, Architectural Digest
Architecture is always dream and function, expression of a utopia and instrument of a convenience.
ROLAND BARTHES
The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies
Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference from nature which may exist in works of art. It involves all the powers of design, and is sculpture and painting inclusively. It shows the greatness of man, and should at the same time teach him humility.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Notes and Lectures Upon Shakespeare and Some of the Old Poets and Dramatists With Other Literary Remains
What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.
ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE
On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change
We are interested in architecture as an instrument of self-government, as an instrument of a humanist civilization. We remain ardent humanists, believing in a man able to control his own destiny.
PAOLO BARATTA
"Venice Biennale of Architecture 2016: 'Reporting From the Front'", Blouin Artinfo, February 23, 2016
Architecture is an art where private demands, aspirations, and needs, intersect with those of the public: architecture not only shapes the commons, but is itself a common good.
JANA PERKOVIC
"Venice Biennale of Architecture 2016: 'Reporting From the Front'", Blouin Artinfo, February 23, 2016
Architecture is a political act, by nature. It has to do with the relationships between people and how they decide to change their conditions of living.
LEBBEUS WOODS
"Without Walls: An Interview with Lebbeus Woods", BLDG Blog, 2007