A Quote by Thom Mayne
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.
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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind--no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be--there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old 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.
If there's a group like Amish people, that want to live their own lifestyle – they don't want to live in our city – they want to live out in the country, with their own projects. We’ll put up the buildings for them, design the buildings for them, design the food production systems for them – if they want us to. But we don’t control them.
I just want to build the best buildings. It's not about me, it's about the buildings, creating a space where society can gather and marvel in beauty and nature.
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.
Too many architects are just trying to make all of their buildings look like a brand, and that may be good for business, but that is terrible for the cities because they lose character. If I go to Paris, I go to see the beauty of Paris and the coherence of Paris.
I wanted to preserve the old buildings, not to destroy them and build something new.
An aggressive building performance standard for all new buildings, and a set of performance requirements to be met by all buildings before they can be sold (when upgrades can be included in the new mortgage). These should encompass heating and cooling, lighting, and plug loads. Coupled with new efficiency standards for appliances, lights, and furnaces, this should reduce the energy consumption of new buildings by 50 percent, more or less immediately, and go on from there.
Where can we find greater structural clarity than in the wooden buildings of the old. Where else can we find such unity of material, construction and form? Here the wisdom of whole generations is stored. What feelings for material and what power of expression there is in these buildings! What warmth and beauty they have! They seem to be echoes of old songs.
You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it.
Bath was dusty and a little shabby when we moved here. It did look its age and you felt its history in its streets and buildings and little alleyways. The sense of the past was palpable. There were some bad modern buildings but there was a patina of age.
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