Top 75 Architects Quotes

It’s important for people who criticise architects – whether what they build is or isn’t to your taste – to appreciate how they devote themselves and put everything into bringing a building into existence.

The tall building, concentrating man in one place more densely than ever before, similarly concentrates the dilemma of our public architecture at the end of the twentieth century: whether the new forms made possible by technology are doomed by the low calculations of modern patrons and their architects.

I feel most strongly about Jerusalem, because architects ultimately have to address that city.

Avant-garde architects have never been able to depend on the support of the establishment, since the customary patrons of this most conservative and slowly moving art form have historically been resistant to innovation and experiment.

Architects of grandeur are often the master builders of disillusionment.

Architects, sculptors painters, we all must return to the crafts! For art is not a ‘profession.’ There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman.

What’s interesting about architects is, we always have tried to justify beauty by looking to nature, and arguably, beautiful architecture has always been looking at a model of nature.

The Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio comes from afar. Our land has a millennial history of emigrations: master masons, architects, builders, decorators, plasterers, artists from the world of building.

As architects we are often involved in the concrete-steel-and-glass aspect of it, but cities are social structures, and to be involved in imagining the future of cities and the type of relationships and the types of places that we’re making is something that intrigues me very much.

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.

Architects create spaces that accommodate human activity. As opposed to many of its contemporary counterparts, Dune’is not so much focused on the styling of that activity, as on the supporting of it.

I love when architects build a golf course that compliments the landscape rather than intrudes upon it.

I’m often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That’s impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more.

I personally felt that his ad hominen attacks on British architects were not the sort of thing a Prince of Wales should be doing because, apart from anything else, they put various people out of business.

I pay two full-time assistants in my studio, plus consultants who are architects, engineers, and landscape architects, as well as lighting designers.

Brands must become architects of community.

Building a baseball team is like building a house. You look for the best architects, the best builders – and then you let them do their jobs.

We need architects to be visionaries.

I’m fascinated with design. I realized early that I had no talent in that direction, but I love talking with architects and designers about what they do. I appreciate applied creativity as a source of pleasure and meaning.

Great architects like Taut, Mendelsohn, and Gropius built some astonishing buildings which were to change the way architects around the world thought. Brecht and Weill forever changed musical theatre; Kaethe Kollwitz and others changed German perceptions of the purposes of art.

In the U.K., architects train for five years, and they spend one day on sound.

St. Petersburg, under the czars, had been a grand city. It was a planned city, and it had – there were all these Parisian architects who had been brought in to build the apartment buildings in the center of town.

I’ve met architects before, and they’re not living the life we see on TV.

I’m strong-willed. Architects are strong-willed. You get the best results with a strong client and a strong architect working together.

When we are trying to come up with new health laws, you bring doctors, you bring experts in medicine. In urban planning, you bring the best architects. How it is possible that when we are talking about the way we are going to feed America, no chef shows up in the room?

It’s time architects start designing for our ears as well as our eyes.

Architects and food at a construction site equals indigestion. We’re always looking for details that haven’t been executed correctly.

I’m a trained architect. Both my parents were architects.

I love architecture, but I learned early on that architects just don’t make a lot of money.

The Iraq war was always a long shot. But it was made immeasurably longer by its principal architects in Washington, including Douglas Feith, who ignored expert advice, reserved most of their effort for fighting each other in ideological battles, and regarded the Iraqi people as an afterthought.

Architects typically inherit programmes or sites. We maybe twist the programme a little bit, bring our own invention into it, and we feel perfectly happy when we walk away. It doesn’t feel like quite enough.

Western governments have generally tried to contain genocide by appeasing its architects. But the sad record of the last century shows that the walls the United States tries to build around genocidal societies almost inevitably shatter.

In Europe, architects consider themselves artists. They think they’re special when they win a competition.

Architects think that beauty is a crime.

The web’s earliest architects and pioneers fought for their vision of freedom on the Internet at a time when it was still small forums for conversation and text-based gaming. They thought the web could be adequately governed by its users without their needing to empower anyone to police it.

Architects today tend to depreciate themselves, to regard themselves as no more than just ordinary citizens without the power to reform the future.

Architects have made architecture too complex. We need to simplify it and use a language that everyone can understand.

Companies and their brands need to reach out and speak directly to consumers, to honor their values, and to form meaningful relationships with them. They must become architects of community, consistently demonstrating the values that their customer community expects in exchange for their loyalty and purchases.

A turning point in the public’s perception of the building art came with the publication of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘An Autobiography’ of 1932, a picaresque narrative that captivated many who hadn’t the slightest inkling of what architects actually did.

Brizo has been my single biggest sponsor since I began as a designer. Brizo wanted to be involved in many different areas of design – they had already worked with several architects, and fashion was an area they were interested in moving into.

Most architects say: I want to use this type of glass, even if it’s too reflective or doesn’t let enough light in. However, the use of a certain type of glass might change the comfort level.

I think architects have a major role in being responsible for illustrating what the future could be. Because of the very strong political and commercial climate, many architects are trying very hard to solve everyday issues, to respond to the authorities.

Architects have created this fake separation between creation and execution. You can see it in architecture schools, where the students look down on going to contracts classes.

I guess I can’t be a great architect. Great architects have a recognizable style. But if every building I did were the same, it would be pretty boring.

I loathe when architects only analyze architecture in intellectual, nonvisual ways. I really love direct response, and that’s very pop. I don’t want to discuss abstract transparencies with a bunch of kooks.

Some architects, such as John Lautner, never really did anything other than houses. His entire portfolio is basically residential. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Architects often have a mindset where you solve a problem, so you have a set of needs that you have to address. Often I feel that my projects have to have concrete applications.

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

The Washingtonian said it shouldn’t be built. The gallery’s East Building is now considered a triumph, and members of the American Association of Architects have voted it one of the best buildings of all time.

Normally, architects render a service. They implement what other people want. This is not what I do. I like to develop the use of the building together with the client, in a process, so that as we go along we become more intelligent.

Architects like to work in a problematic environment.

Fifa has lost the trust of the people. We cannot allow the architects and controllers of world football to get away with dragging the beautiful game through the grime of corruption and bribery.

All architects want to live beyond their deaths.