Quotes About Architecture

could see so well the kind of house that has no mercy

in order that the lower edge of each stone should hitch like a pawl into a ratchet cut into the top of the walls; hence no stone can press on the one below it, so as to cause a cumulative pressure all down the roof; and each stone is separately upheld by the side walls which it lies across.27 And this was the work of a people whose civilization had only recently emerged from neolithic hunter-gathering?

No pyramids of comparable quality were ever built again.

Of course! We laid waste their fleets, attacked their outpost worlds.… And the Forerunners themselves found a way to bring down the indestructible architecture of the Precursors, on Charum Hakkor.… Charum Hakkor, once called the Eternal.

Here and there, small balconies jutted out to meet one another overhead

but he boasted about the buildings as if they were his own design.

When I designed my loft, I literally framed the World Trade Center as a picture postcard I could see from my bed. I no longer have that image, and I mourn it.

I think the World Trade Center should be rebuilt as the World Trade Center, only stronger and one story taller. I hate what they're doing with the World Trade Center site.

Before World War II, Modernist architects sometimes had to resort to custom fabrication or outright fakery to achieve the machine imagery advocated by the Bauhaus after its initial, Expressionist, phase. Stucco masqueraded as reinforced concrete; rivets were used for decoration.

Don't build a glass house if you're worried about saving money on heating.

The thing I'd really like to see is the old London Bridge, with all the old buildings around it like Shakespeare's Globe. I'd like to walk along that. Don't worry, I won't get drunk and fall in.

Most of the job on DDP was already done by the time I became mayor. So was Gwanghwamun Square, described by many architects as the city's worst architectural creation, and the new city hall. I did not think that redoing them would be the right approach as that would only create new problems.

The commission process in America and England is different. In America, they do it through an interview process, and it's really based on whether they like you or not. I mean, it's nothing to do with whether you do the best scheme or the worst scheme.

Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?

'Form follows function' comes with so much baggage. It's a worthless phrase because you'll never take it for what it means.

Tom Wall has the unique ability to extract, cultivate and realize a vision that goes far beyond simple bricks and mortar. He has an amazing appreciation of art and beauty and his designs begin with listening to his clients.

Does it follow that the house has nothing in common with art and is architecture not to be included in the arts? Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art: the tomb and the monument. Everything else that fulfils a function is to be excluded from the domain of art.

When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.

I decided to finish at Oxford because I looked up at the top of the buildings - the gargoyles and spires - and decided to stay.

Although we're architects, we believe we do culture; architecture is culture, and the topics we tackle will always arise a broader debate.

I don't think you can separate a place from its history. I think a place is much more than the bricks and mortar that go into its construction. I think it's more than the accidental topography of the ground it stands on.

Cities are complex and contain just about any thing or concept ever invented by humans. How the city is built, its topography, and how close you live to your work and a grocery store affects your mobility.

Good buildings make and are made by their settings, and they are appropriately different in different locations. Climate, culture, topography and materials have helped create regional architectural languages that seem curiously right for their locations and for all times.

Ik stak één straat eerder door naar 4th Avenue, omdat ik niet langs de kerk wilde lopen; er zat soms een stenen waterspuwer op die me de stuipen op het lijf joeg. Het was niet die waterspuwer zelf die ik eng vond, maar het was dat "soms" waar ik de zenuwen van kreeg. Waterspuwers zijn beeldhouwwerkjes, ze horen deel uit te maken van een gebouw. Als er een zit, hoort die daar altijd te zitten en niet af en toe.