Quotes from Arthur Erickson

No amount of thought can ever reveal what comes unexpectedly.

God's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the "self-made men", who take the credit.

What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.

Our universities advocate fragmentation in their course systems.

Bankers cannot afford to be concerned with only the economic aspects of projects. There may be serious implications on the natural environment, the urban environment, on human culture.

Today's developer is a poor substitute for the committed entrepreneur of the last century for whom the work of architecture represented a chance to celebrate the worth of his enterprise.

Materialism has never been so ominous as now in North America, as management takes over.

The artist likes to seem totally responsible for his work. Often he begins to explain it, to make it appear as if it were a reasonable process.

Nearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad.

The innovative spirit was America's strongest attribute, transforming everything into a brave new world, but there lingered an insecurity about the arts.

After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared.

Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture.

Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.

Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it.

The tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before.

Only when inspired to go beyond consciousness by some extraordinary insight does beauty manifest unexpectedly.

Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place?

The Achilles Heel of the Americas was the lack of cultural confidence typical of new settlers.

The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.

You have to see a building to comprehend it. Photographs cannot convey the experience, nor film.

With production alone as the goal, industry in North America was dominated by the assembly line, standardization for mass consumption.