quotes about art, architecture and other important things

a collection of quotes that I gathered over the years through my reading.  I don't necessarily agree with all of the ideas and opinions expressed herein but those that either provoked thought or tickled were included.

August 2014 - studio of Glenn Williams Architect NCARB

heuristics

By | art, art theory, essayist, philosopher, poet, quotes on art and architecture, Transcendentalism, writer | No Comments

“Every artist was first an amateur.” – –   Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] American essayist, lecturer, and poet

Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_ca1857_retouched

Ralph Waldo Emerson ca 1857

 

“The first job of the man who has a problem must be to become better acquainted with it.  The way to do this is by producing an inadequate solution to the problem – a speculation – and by criticizing this.  To understand a problem means, in effect, to understand its difficulties; and this cannot be done until we see why the more obvious solutions do not work  Even in those cases where no satisfactory answer turns up we may learn something from this procedure.” – –  William Bartley [1934-1990] American philosopher and author

W.W. Bartley, III

 

essences

By | architect, architectural theory, architecture, entrepreneur, inventor, quotes on art and architecture, Uncategorized | No Comments

“God is in the details.” – – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe [1886-1969] German American architect

Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer, but to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design.  Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers.” – -Steve Jobs 1955-2011] American entrepreneur, marketer, and inventor

Steven Paul Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs

architecture is…

By | architect, architectural theory, architecture, designer, postmodernism, quotes on art and architecture | No Comments

“Architecture tries to preserve body heat and ritual.” – – Hans Hollein [1934-2014] Austrian postmodern architect and designer

Hans Hollein in 1976

Hans Hollein in 1976

“Architecture is the knowing, correct, and magnificent play of forms beneath the sun.” – – Le Corbusier [1887-1965] Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in 1933, better known as Le Corbusier

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in 1933, better known as Le Corbusier

“Architecture needs no explanation, and its reason-for-being comes with being built and inhabited.  Too close a reliance on the verbal explanation reduces the building to the status of a footnote.” – –  Robert McCarter [b. about 1953] American architect, author and educator

Robert McCarter

Robert McCarter

“Architecture is to make us know and remember who we are.” – – Geoffrey Jellicoe [1900-1996] English architect, town planner, landscape architect, garden designer and author

Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe

Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe

“Architecture is the art of how to waste space.” – – Phillip Johnson [1906-2005] American architect advocating the the modernist then the postmodernist idiom

Philip Cortelyou Johnson

Philip Cortelyou Johnson

falling out of love

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“I would advise you to wait a while until your enthusiasm for your project has boiled over.  Afterwards, you may return and consider it more carefully, when your judgment is no longer swayed by fondness for your design but guided by calm reason.” Leon Battista Alberti [1404-1472] Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomized the Renaissance man

Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti