Quotes & Sayings About Architectural Design

Play on lively, diversified sidewalks differs from virtually all other daily incidental play offered American children today: It is play not conducted in a matriarchy.
Most city architectural designers and planners are men. Curiously, they design and plan to exclude men as part of normal, daytime life wherever people live. In planning residential life, they aim at filling the presumed daily needs of impossibly vacuous housewives and preschool tots. They plan, in short, strictly for matriarchal societies. — Jane Jacobs

For many years, I have lived uncomfortably with the belief that most planning and architectural design suffers for lack of real and basic purpose. The ultimate purpose, it seems to me, must be the improvement of mankind. — James Rouse

The Japanese garden is a very important tool in Japanese architectural design because, not only is a garden traditionally included in any house design, the garden itself also reflects a deeper set of cultural meanings and traditions. Whereas the English garden seeks to make only an aesthetic impression, the Japanese garden is both aesthetic and reflective. The most basic element of any Japanese garden design comes from the realization that every detail has a significant value. — E. J. W. Barber

Architectural and product designs have a narrative capacity - you can start to tell a story about them and imagine a lot of things. — Michael Graves

No foreign architect of stature, such as I. M. Pei, resides in Japan. Foreign architects come to Japan on short-term contracts, erect a skyscraper or a museum, and then leave. But subtle and sophisticated approaches to services and design - the core elements of modern building technology - cannot be transmitted in this way. Japan is left with the empty shells of architectural ideas, the hardware without the software. — Alex Kerr

I am equally proud of all of my architectural projects. It's always rewarding to see an ambitious design become reality. — Zaha Hadid

I see the Beijing National Stadium as an architectural project. I accepted Herzog and De Meuron's invitation to collaborate on the design, and our proposal won the competition. From beginning to end, I stayed with the project. I am committed to fostering relationships between a city and its architecture. — Ai Weiwei

We depend on computers when we ourselves haven't mastered the principles behind what we are asking computers to design.
Glenn Murcutt - A Singular Architectural Practice page 16 — Glenn Murcutt

Interior design is a travesty of the architectural process and a frightening condemnation of the credulity, helplessness and gullibility of the most formidable consumers - the rich. — Stephen Bayley

The debut show, "Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary," is supposed to be about how artists reuse humble or unusual materials. There's good work here, but much of what's on view is actually more about obsession and repetition: a couch made out of 3,500 quarters, a necklace composed of 100 handgun triggers. The building [of Museum of Arts and Design], too, seems caught between wanting to be an object of decorative delectation and making an architectural statement. — Jerry Saltz

The vision shared by both [French utopian] Charles Fourier and Robert Owen was for an entire town to fit into one structure. Owen's design for what he called a "parallelogram" was essentially to have a whole city in one building, laid out around a huge quadrangle. Fourier's scheme was to build a massive Versailles-like structure that he called a "phalanstery." In both cases they had these architectural dreams that we now recognize as pretty unappealing. — Christine Jennings

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 task of the architectural project is to reveal, through the transformation of form, the essence of the surrounding context. — Vittorio Gregotti

My architectural drive was to design new types of buildings to help poor people, especially following natural disasters and catastrophes ... I will use whatever time is left to me to keep doing what I have been doing, which is to help humanity. — Frei Otto

Buildings are seldom just buildings in downtown Chicago, they are Examples, and not a city on Earth, I swear, is as knowledgeably preoccupied with architectural meaning. Where else would a department store include in its advertisements the name of the architect who created it, or a newspaper property section throw in a scholarly exposition of theoretical design? — Jan Morris

My furniture is an exercise in architecture or architectural mood. — Ettore Sottsass

Always beware an unsigned architectural design. — Martin Filler

My father was a master carpenter and builder. Architectural design, engineering design, mechanical design, three-dimensional views, that was my shtick, my forte. — Bobby Seale

I started to begin to be interested in architecture and design when I was 14 years old, which was pretty early in life. And then I would start to look at architectural magazines and I eventually went to the school of architecture too, but one of the things I learned very early is that an architect should be able to design anything from a spoon to the city. — Massimo Vignelli

It is usually a mistake to impose an individual's taste on a room that has its own ... style. Conversely, to put very fine pieces of furniture in a room that is without architectural distinction is as absurd as wearing a tiara with a bathing suit. — Nancy Lancaster

The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. — Vinton Cerf

I aim to create furniture that appears in a room as buildings on a skyline and reminds the viewer of the interaction between objects of design and architectural space. — Gae Aulenti

To quiet the land. When there has been unspecific trauma on the land and residents feel the impact, it is possible to do a constellation to identify the trauma and ask blessing of the land To inform land use: reforestation, development of both the land and communities that interface with the land To inform architectural design: Identify locations for green spaces and test environmentally sound building materials To inform energy choices: passive solar, hydro, wind, alternative building practices To support real estate transactions- Why won't a place sell, supporting potential buyers to be able to look at properties in a systemic way To support environmentally based community action agencies Work with pets- both for veterinary practice and to — Francesca Boring

All those involved in the construction of an architectural design, from the architect to the builder, have an attachment to the architecture, although it's difficult to quantify the attachment. — Tadao Ando

Because it is a national landmark, there is only one way to judge the Kennedy Center - against the established standard of progressive and innovative excellence in architectural design that this country is known and admired for internationally. Unfortunately, the Kennedy Center not only does not achieve this standard of innovative excellence; it also did not seek it. The architect opted for something ambiguously called 'timelessness' and produced meaninglessness. It is to the Washington manner born. Too bad, since there is so much of it. — Ada Louise Huxtable

I was inspired by the androgyny of Yohji Yamanoto's designs to translate the clothing's dualities onto screen and image. I was playing with a multitude of influences for the S/S 2012 campaign, inspired by the modernist literature and architecture that is in itself a fusion of political and architectural mantras, both dreamy and concrete. — Collier Schorr

Writing generally, it may be said that in design, roof, and general aspect, Japanese Buddhist temples are all alike. The sacred architectural idea expresses itself in nearly the same form always. — Isabella Bird

People say I design architectural icons. If I design a building and it becomes an icon, that's ok. — Zaha Hadid

Snohetta promotes a more democratic workplace atmosphere than most other architectural offices. This may merely reflect prevalent employment practices in Scandinavia, but Snohetta places a stronger emphasis on group participation in the design process than typical high-style firms. — Martin Filler