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“American architecture is the art of covering one thing with another thing to imitate a third thing which, if genuine, would not be desirable.” — Leopold Eidlitz [1823-1908] Bohemian American architect

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Leopold Eidlitz

“Technically speaking, a material is fake when it displays some but not all of the qualities of the material we take it to be.  And it is the selecting of qualities that “will do” from the complex of qualities properly belonging to the real stuff that, together with the dissemblance, indicates what Sartre would have called “bad faith” on the part of the designer/provider toward the user/appreciator…… unless, that is the deception is framed as such.” – – Michael Benedikt [b. around 1948] architect, writer

A man with glasses and a beard wearing a suit.

Michael Benedikt

“Truth in architecture is only present when every material is shown on its own merits and mimics not the resemblance of any others.” – – Charles Renee Mackintosh [1868-1928] Scottish architect, artist

A man with a mustache wearing a bow tie.

Charles Renee Mackintosh

“Beauty isn’t things trying to look like something else.  Beauty is things being just what they are.”  – – Phædrus in LILA:  An Inquiry Into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig [b. 1928] American philosopher, writer

A man with white hair and beard looking to his left.

Robert Maynard Pirsig