A Quote by Tadao Ando

Italy is full of historical buildings. And Europe holds a great history of philosophy from Greece until today. I read all those books and see these buildings, and I think of where I stand when I design my architecture.
I'm afraid what we are building today will not have the same impact and sustainability of the architecture of a 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago. The buildings of those days were miracles. We don't perform such miracles today. So we should be a little more modest. For my part, I'll be glad to show one of my buildings one day to my grandchildren and say: I'm proud of that.
I don't think all buildings have to be iconic, but the history of the world has shown us that cultures build iconic buildings for their major public buildings.
After World War II great strides were made in modern Japanese architecture, not only in advanced technology, allowing earthquake resistant tall buildings, but expressing and infusing characteristics of traditional Japanese architecture in modern buildings.
You see all these old buildings [in Rio] going down or catching fire overnight, and it is so sad. I am very connected with these buildings because they are our history. It is the only one that we have.
There was a time in our past when one could walk down any street and be surrounded by harmonious buildings. Such a street wasn't perfect, it wasn't necessarily even pretty, but it was alive. The old buildings smiled, while our new buildings are faceless. The old buildings sang, while the buildings of our age have no music in them.
Modern buildings of our time are so huge that one must group them. Often the space between these buildings is as important as the buildings themselves.
When you travel, you can see lots of great buildings and monuments and stuff, but the best part of traveling is meeting people as you go. Those are the people who made the places you go to anyway. All my memories of traveling - yeah, there are some buildings or landscapes that I'll always remember - but I still think I remember the people I meet more than any of that.
I became a fanatic of the architecture of Le Corbusier and I visited almost all his buildings and read all his books. Only later on did I discover that all the things that impressed me in his books, particular his ideology, he had picked up from Auguste Perret.
Qatar does not have much history, it's a new emirate. So I couldn't draw on the history of the country; its history is really just being a desert. But I thought, the one thing I must learn about for this project is the Islamic faith. So I read about Islam and Islamic architecture, and the more I studied the more I realized where the best Islamic buildings were.
The artistic part of us all - I think that the easiest way to appreciate this - is through architecture. Architecture is very impressive; the beauty of buildings, temples.
Buffalo is one of America's great designed cities. The interweaving of great architecture, landscape architecture and important historic sites makes Buffalo a must see destination for preservationists, designers, history buffs, and anyone wishing to see an inspiring example of American design.
There are hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the United States and in other countries, too. Wright lived into his 90s, and one of his most famous buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was completed just before his death. Wright buildings look like Wright buildings - that is their paradox.
I was always really geeky about design and buildings. Always into architecture as a kid.
In Paris, there has to be a presence. History becomes the most interesting when it's compared to the present. I mean there's a whole group of people that want to build new buildings that look like old buildings.
We shouldn't just look at new buildings but at existing stock building because that's an even greater problem than the new buildings being built. The renovation of existing buildings and making them green is just as important as designing new green buildings.
In Brazil, there is a fear and a denial of our past. Downtown Rio used to display the history of colonialism in Brazil. They had beautiful buildings and theaters, and there was a bakery that was threatened to be demolished, but people insisted against it. They laid down in front of it and said, "You're going to have to go over my body to destroy it." It frustrates me when I see people on Facebook posing in front of old buildings while on vacation, because they could've posed in front of equally beautiful buildings at home in Rio.
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