Philosophy Quotes

"Being a famous designer is like being a famous dentist."

- Noreen Morioka

"I'm convinced that without bad design, the world would be a far less stimulating place; we would have nothing to marvel over and nothing to be nostalgic about."

- Carrie Phillips

"All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks."

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

"The fundamental failure of most graphic, product, architectural and even urban design is its insistence on serving the God of Looking-Good rather than the God of Being-Good."

- Richard Saul Wurman

"The first gesture of an architect is to draw a perimeter; in other words, to separate the microclimate from the macro space outside. This in itself is a sacred act. Architecture in itself conveys this idea of limiting space. It’s a limit between the finite and the infinite. From this point of view, all architecture is sacred."

- Mario Botta

"Form ever follows function."

- Louis Sullivan

"Architecture is the reaching out for the truth."

- Louis Kahn

"Architecture is the learned game, correct & magnificent, of forms assembled in the light."

- Le Corbusier

"Architecture is the stage on which we live our lives."

- Mariam Kamara

"A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."

- Frank Lloyd Wright

"You can’t change the world with pretty buildings."

- Peter Eisenman

"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity."

- I. M. Pei

"A house is a machine for living in."

- Le Corbusier

"Architecture is not about space but about time."

- Vito Acconci

"Architecture begins where engineering ends."

- Walter Gropius

"Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space."

- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

"Architecture is not an inspirational business, it’s a rational procedure to do sensible and hopefully beautiful things."

- Harry Seidler

"Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction."

- Alvar Aalto

"Life is architecture, and architecture is the mirror of life."

- I. M. Pei

"An architect’s designs must refer to the unquestionable perfection of the body’s symmetry and proportions. If a building is to create a sense of eurythmy, it is essential that it mirrors these natural laws of harmony and beauty."

- Vitruvius

"Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light."

- Le Corbusier

"The limits of architecture are its strength. Its inability to give form to a transient idea. Its inevitable tendency to stabilize, is the latent power of architecture."

- David Chipperfield

"Nothing requires the architect’s care more than the due proportions of buildings."

- Vitruvius

"In the end only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you."

- Gautama Buddha

"Form follows function."

- Louis Sullivan

"The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God."

- Antoni Gaudi

"Architecture is the will of the age conceived in spatial terms."

- Mies van der Rohe

"Architecture should be dedicated to keeping the outside out and the inside in."

- Leonard Baskin

"Form Follows Function."

- Louis Sullivan

"God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger."

- Heraclitus