A Quote by Norman Foster

If you weren’t an optimist, it would be impossible to be an architect. — © Norman Foster
If you weren’t an optimist, it would be impossible to be an architect.
It wasn't an architect who did this, but if it had been an architect, it would have been a good day's work: there was a marketing person who convinced Walmart that their products sold better in daylight than electric light. It would have been interesting if an architect had deliberately designed this change with all its spatial consequences in mind, thinking about how the change would multiply across all the square footage of all the roofs of all the Walmarts in the world. It would have been a beautiful trick - a physical, practical, political pleasure.
I am a stubborn optimist: I was born an optimist and will remain an optimist.
I initially thought I would be an architect, maybe. So I went to architecture camp and quickly learned that I did not want to be an architect. I was like, 'No. This is not for me.'
An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that’s out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.
My father is an architect, so I often think like a designer or an architect. I remember when I was admiring buildings, I would look up at them and see this perspective and this awesome power of the monument in front of me.
I'm an optimist. You can't be an entrepreneur if you're not essentially an optimist, so I'm an optimist by nature.
But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.
A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.
The architect is very interesting because the architect is the commander, meaning the one who commands all the workers. The architect is also the music director and composer. He cannot play each instrument, but he needs to understand and embody the sense of each part.
So what am I? I guess I would call myself a sober optimist...If you are not sober about the scale of the challenge, then you are not paying attention. But if you are not an optimist, you have no chance of generating the kind of mass movement needed to achieve the needed scale.
I used to not like being called a 'woman architect': I'm an architect, not just a woman architect. Guys used to tap me on the head and say, 'You are okay for a girl.' But I see the incredible amount of need from other women for reassurance that it could be done, so I don't mind that at all.
I used to not like being called a 'woman architect.' I'm an architect, not just a woman architect. The guys used to tap me on the head and say 'you're OK for a girl.' But I see an incredible amount of need from other women for reassurance that it can be done, so I don't mind anymore.
I am an optimist. If I ever quit being an optimist, I guess I'll become a Republican.
You have to be an optimist, right? You have to be critical, then you have to be an optimist. Or else you're really stupid.
It may not seem that way, but I am an absolute optimist, an unrepentant optimist.
I'm a serious optimist. I come from a country where you have little to be hopeful for, and so you have to always be an optimist.
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