20th-century Architect Quotes

Over the years, it has slowly dawned on me that the people who cause my painful experiences are ignorant and crude. They are the critics who have not read enough and the clients who do not know why they have come to us. I have been helped to realise this by noticing that the scholars whose work we most respect, the clients whose projects intrigue us, and the patrons whose friendship inspires us, have no problem understanding my role. They are the sophisticates. Partly through them I gain heart and realise that, over the last twenty years, I have managed to do my work and, despite some sliding, to achieve my own self-respect.

Denise Scott Brown

In my mind, I'm a builder in the traditional, 15th century way. I like building nice structures. Whatever else it takes to do that, I'll do it.

On the World Trade Center buildings in New York:

So utterly banal as to be unworthy of the headquarters of a bank in Omaha.

Paul Goldberger

Architecture is not about building the impossible, which we can do if we have enough money and enough tools and enough computers, it is about building what is appropriate and about attaining beauty through such an approach. I describe this premise as inherent buildability and I believe it is central to what I do.

Don't attempt to reform man. An adequately organized environment will permit humanity's original, innate capabilities to become successful.

Buckminster Fuller

Architecture
is a small piece of this human equation, but for those of us who practice it,
we believe in its potential to make a difference, to enlighten and to enrich the
human experience, to penetrate the barriers of misunderstandin g and provide a
beautiful context for life's drama.

From the balance of the past, we have been lea to the great injustice of the present.

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis

The only limit to your garden is at the boundaries of your imagination.

Thomas Church (landscape architect)

In short, the building becomes a theatrical demonstration of its functional ideal. In this romanticism, High-Tech architecture is, of course, no different in spirit – if totally different in form – from all the romantic architecture of the past.

Dan Cruickshank

Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals.

Simon Wiesenthal

Consider this: all the ants on the planet, taken together, have a biomass greater than that of humans. Ants have been incredibly industrious for millions of years. Yet their productiveness nourishes plants, animals, and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn't have a design problem. People do.

William McDonough

Hitler had a great gift for adjusting - consciously or intuitively - to his surroundings.... With enormous histrionic intuition he could shape his behavior to changing situations.

As is the case with all good things in life - love, good manners, language, cooking - personal creativity is required only rarely.

The combined results of the growing independence, culture and prosperity of the lesser gentry and professional classes, the sewing up of the parliamentary system, and the resulting decline in importance of the smaller freeholder was a growing gap between the polite world of the gentry and the impolite world of servants, farmers and smallholders. In terms of the country house this meant an increasing split between gentry upstairs and non-gentry downstairs. Gentlemen could now only enter household service as librarians, tutors or chaplains; in which case they did not consider themselves servants and ate with the family or on their own. The tenants and freeholders, on the other hand, had sunk in status with the upper servants.

Gravity is measured by the bottom of the foot; we trace the density and texture of the ground through our soles. Standing barefoot on a smooth glacial rock by the sea at sunset, and sensing the warmth of the sun-heated stone through one's soles, is an extraordinarily healing experience, making one part of the eternal cycle of nature. One senses the slow breathing of the earth.

Juhani Pallasmaa