ARCHITECTURE QUOTES II
quotations about architecture
I've always been interested in the idea of the artificial landscape. Reforming the landscape. Architecture being a method of reforming the earth's surface.
LEBBEUS WOODS
"Subtopia Meets Lebbeus Woods", Subtopia, 2007
Architecture has its political Use; publick Buildings being the Ornament of a Country; it establishes a Nation, draws People and Commerce; makes the People love their native Country, which Passion is the Original of all great Actions in a Common-wealth.
CHRISTOPHER WREN
Parentalia
Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
An Organic Architecture
I believe in an "emotional architecture." It is very important for human kind that architecture should move by its beauty; if there are many equally valid technical solutions to a problem, the one which offers the user a message of beauty and emotion, that one is architecture.
LUIS BARRAGÁN
attributed, Contemporary Architects
Light, God's eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building: yet it shines not alike from all parts of heaven.
THOMAS FULLER
The Holy State and the Profane State
Only when architect, bricklayer and tenant are a unity, or one and the same person, can we speak of architecture. Everything else is not architecture, but a criminal act which has taken on form.
FRIEDENSREICH HUNDERTWASSER
Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture
Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake.
LUIS BARRAGAN
Time magazine, May 12, 1980
In dance, crazy things are done all the time, and I don't think people get as worked up about it as a strange building. When you have a lot of historic context and then have a new form of expression, it inevitably adds tension. And for some people, that is a healthy thing, and for some people it is not.... I hope it continues to create some debate. Part of architecture's role is to create questions.
JERRY SPARKMAN
"Letter From Home: History in three dimensions", Sarasota Herald Tribune, March 13, 2016
Forests were the first temples of God and in forests men grasped their first idea of architecture.
JAMES C. SNYDER
Introduction to Architecture
I think, you know, architecture should not just be something that follows up on events but be a leader of events ... by implementing an architectural action, you actually are making a transformation in the social fabric and in the political fabric. Architecture becomes an instigator.
LEBBEUS WOODS
"Without Walls: An Interview with Lebbeus Woods", BLDG Blog, 2007
So long as we see the stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the points of support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise than regret the dexterous artifices which compel us to feel as if there were fibre in its shafts and life in its branches.
JOHN RUSKIN
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
There is no way of accounting for the incongruities of architects. They have their dreams, we suppose, like the poets; and failing to establish a reputation by legitimate means, they seek notoriety by eccentricities.
ROBERT BELL
The Ladder of Gold
All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.
PHILIP JOHNSON
speech, 1975
There are many ways to be an architect. There are possibly more ways to be a young architect.... For it takes ingenuity to form your (beautifully detailed) niche in the granite walls erected against career progress in this profession.
ROWAN MOORE
"The architects building a future for themselves", The Guardian, March 12, 2016
If there is no idea in the drawing, there is no idea in the constructed project. That's the expression of the idea. Architects make drawings that other people build. I make the drawings. If someone wants to build from those, that's up to them. I feel I'm making architecture. I believe the building comes into being as soon as it's drawn.
LEBBEUS WOODS
"The Reality of Experimental Architecture: an Interview with Lebbeus Woods", Carnegie Online, July/August 2004
A building's success should be judged on whether it is filled with people.
JACQUES HERZOG
"All architecture needs a humanitarian approach, says Jacques Herzog", Dezeen, February 25, 2016
Houses are built to live in, and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. Leave the goodly fabrics of houses, for beauty only, to the enchanted palaces of the poets; who build them with small cost. He that builds a fair house, upon an ill seat, committeth himself to prison. Neither do I reckon it an ill seat, only where the air is unwholesome; but likewise where the air is unequal; as you shall see many fine seats set upon a knap of ground, environed with higher hills round about it; whereby the heat of the sun is pent in, and the wind gathereth as in troughs; so as you shall have, and that suddenly, as great diversity of heat and cold as if you dwelt in several places. Neither is it ill air only that maketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets; and, if you will consult with Momus, ill neighbors. I speak not of many more; want of water; want of wood, shade, and shelter; want of fruitfulness, and mixture of grounds of several natures; want of prospect; want of level grounds; want of places at some near distance for sports of hunting, hawking, and races; too near the sea, too remote; having the commodity of navigable rivers, or the discommodity of their overflowing; too far off from great cities, which may hinder business, or too near them, which lurcheth all provisions, and maketh everything dear; where a man hath a great living laid together, and where he is scanted: all which, as it is impossible perhaps to find together, so it is good to know them, and think of them, that a man may take as many as he can; and if he have several dwellings, that he sort them so that what he wanteth in the one, he may find in the other. Lucullus answered Pompey well; who, when he saw his stately galleries, and rooms so large and lightsome, in one of his houses, said, Surely an excellent place for summer, but how do you in winter? Lucullus answered, Why, do you not think me as wise as some fowl are, that ever change their abode towards the winter?
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Building", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
For architecture, nature provides only indications and analogies, not models to imitate.
LEON KRIER
Architecture
When circumstances defy order, order should bend or break: anomalies and uncertainties give validity to architecture.
ROBERT VENTURI
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
A great building must begin with the immeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasured.
LOUIS KAHN
attributed, Security Patterns in Practice: Designing Secure Architectures Using Software