Saarinen Quotes & Sayings

To me the drawn language is a very revealing language: one can see in a few lines whether a man is really an architect. — Eero Saarinen

Art was born as a desire, not as a demand. — Eliel Saarinen

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan. — Eliel Saarinen

I wanted to clear up the slum of legs ... I wanted to make the chair all one thing again. — Eero Saarinen

There are lots of people who give their all and have that inner glow on. It's a shame that majority of them are under seven years old. — Esa Saarinen

I have come to the conviction that once one embarks on a concept for a building, this concept has to be exaggerated and overstated and repeated in every part of its interior so that wherever you are, inside or outside, the building sings with the same message. — Eero Saarinen

The major concern ... was to create a monument which would have lasting significance and would be a landmark of our time ... Neither an obelisk nor a rectangular box nor a dome seemed right on this site or for this purpose. But here, at the edge of the Mississippi River, a great arch did seem right. — Eero Saarinen

Philosophy is a state of fermentation a process without final outcome. — Esa Saarinen

Confusion comes from trying to amalgamate several conflicting ideas. — Eero Saarinen

The opposite of creativity is cynicism — Esa Saarinen

Function influence but does not dictate form — Eero Saarinen

What you newspaper and magazine writers, who work in rabbit time, don't understand is that the practice of architecture has to be measured in elephant time. — Eero Saarinen

The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man's life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence, — Eero Saarinen

All I learned from Eliel Saarinen was how to make out an expense account — Frank Lloyd Wright