Top 957 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Architects - Page 2

Each new situation requires a new architecture.

The general public will almost always stand behind the traditionalists. In the public eye, architecture is about comfort, about shelter, about bricks and mortar.

The straight line belongs to Man. The curved line belongs to God

For me, the excitement in architecture revolves around the idea and the phenomenon of the experience of that idea. Residences offer almost immediate gratification. You can shape space, light, and materials to a degree that you sometimes can't in larger projects.

As people talk, text and browse, telecommunication networks are capturing urban flows in real time and crystallizing them as Google's traffic congestion maps.

I'm not interested in living in a fantasy world ... All my work is still meant to evoke real architectural spaces. But what interests me is what the world would be like if we were free of conventional limits. Maybe I can show what could happen if we lived by a different set of rules.

One seldom recognizes the devil when he is putting his hand on your shoulder.

Every project is an opportunity to learn, to figure out problems and challenges, to invent and reinvent.

From 50 centuries, we can learn about the close relationship between garden design and urban design, because both arts involve the composition of buildings with paving, landform, water, vegetation and climate.

First life, then spaces, then buildings - the other way around never works.

Buildings are forms of performances.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations.

Christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history.

Everything man is doing in architecture is to try to go against nature. Of course we have to understand nature to know how far we have to go against nature. The secret, I think, of the future is not doing too much. All architects have the tendency to do too much.

I believe that the material doesn’t need to be strong to be used to build a strong structure. The strength of the structure has nothing to do with the strength of the material.

I think buildings should imitate ecological systems. Ecological systems in nature before we had human beings you know interfere with them exist in a state of stasis - they are self-supporting, self-sustaining.

When I was young, all we ever heard about was functionalism, functionalism, functionalism. It’s not enough. Design should also be sensual and exciting.

The ideal hole is surely one that affords the greatest pleasure to the greatest number, gives the fullest advantage for accurate play, stimulates players to improve their game, and never becomes monotonous.

Architects have made architecture too complex. We need to simplify it and use a language that everyone can understand.

Architecture is by definition a very collaborative process.

Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence.

Ignorance of the law excuses no man from practicing it.

The hand expresses what the heart already knows.

We need better architecture and planning: more imaginatively exciting, more involving, more our own.

In gardens it's not just plants and insects and microbes that grow. People grow too, and the best bit is that they don't realise it's happening. It just happens.

Architecture aims at Eternity.

There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners.

I had the idea to become really emotionally detached, and a lot of the time I've treated people that I've cared about a lot really unfairly.

I made the first Moebius strip without knowing what it was.

Light is what gives joy to buildings.

The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man's life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.

Less is a bore.

The dialogue between client and architect is about as intimate as any conversation you can have, because when you're talking about building a house, you're talking about dreams.

And, of course, supernatural elements just make a story more interesting.

It is only the young and callow and ignorant that admire rashness. Think before you speak. Know your subject.

The most beautiful house in the world is the one that you build for yourself.

A goal is not the same as a desire, and this is an important distinction to make. You can have a desire you don't intend to act on. But you can't have a goal you don't intend to act on.

Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves andthe world, and this mediation takes place through the senses

A building is a human being's space and the background for his dignity and its exterior should reflect its contents and function

A lie's true power cannot be accurately measured by the number of people who believe its deception when it is told, it must be measured by the number of people who will go out after hearing it trying to convince others of its truth.

A greater awareness in architects and planners of their real value to society could, at the present, result in that rare occurrence, namely, the improvement of the quality of life as a result of architectural endeavour.

The quiet rhythmic monotone of the wall of logs fills one with the rustic peace of a secluded nook in the woods.

I was born in Argentina, June 13, 1943. I brought up my parents very well, so they let me come to America to study at Princeton University.

Every garden scheme should have a backbone, a central idea beautifully phrased. Every wall, path, stone and flower should have its relationship to the central idea.

I never show the back of my tongue. That is a Dutch expression.

Abstraction returned as soon as artists tried to come to closer grips with reality than naturalistic representation permitted.

We all need the living green or we'll shrivel up inside. To make the modern city livable is the task of our times.

Architecture is not created, it is discovered – the hand will find solutions before the mind can even comprehend them.

Each flitch, each board, each plank can have only one ideal use. The woodworker, applying a thousand skills, must find that ideal use and then shape the wood to realize its true potential.

Tape with LTFS has several advantages over the other external storage devices it would typically be compared to. First, tape has been designed from Day 1 to be an offline device and to sit on a shelf. An LTFS-formatted LTO-6 tape can store 2.5 TB of uncompressed data and almost 6 TB with compression. That means many data centers could fit their entire data set into a small FedEx box. With LTFS the sending and receiving data centers no longer need to be running the same application to access the data on the tape.

The conscious principle in this design has been to achieve forms that could create experiences, and that could at the same time welcome everyone's experiences with the serenity of an effortless development.

Architecture can't force people to connect, it can only plan the crossing points, remove barriers, and make the meeting places useful and attractive.

Fine fruit is the flower of commodities. It is the most perfect union of the useful and the beautiful that the earth knows. Trees full of soft foliage; blossoms fresh with spring bounty; and, finally, fruit, rich, bloom-dusted, melting, and luscious.

I've always seen architecture as a healing art, not just as a beautification art.

I remember saying that wars must not be glorified, but wars must be remembered.

An architect must remember that the people working or living in his building need space - to dream, to be quiet, to find beauty somewhere.

Once you make the unequivocal internal commitment to do something - when you absolutely know this is the time and the place to act - the world around you will shift in all sorts of apparently miraculous ways to make it happen.

Architects must have a razor-sharp sense of individuality.

I derive a tremendous amount of pride in developing places that everyday people can experience. I like to create beauty in everyday lives.