Quotes about Architecture

Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall.

The loftier the building, the deeper must the foundation be laid.

In a modular world, supplying a component or assembling outsourced components are both appropriate "solutions." In the interdependent world of inadequate functionality, attempting to provide one piece of the system doesn't solve anybody's problem. Knowing this, we can predict the failure or success of a growth business based on managers' choices to compete with modular architectures when the circumstances mandate interdependence, and vice versa.

Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain.

The more abstract, the more ideal an art is, the more it reveals to us the temper of its age. If we wish to understand a nation by means of its art, let us look at its architecture or its music.

One can, for example, hire mere technical ability in engineering, accountancy, architecture or any other profession at nominal salaries. But the person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people — that person is headed for higher earning power.

The perfection of twelfth-century Cistercian architecture is not to be explained by saying that the Cistercians were looking for a new technique. I am not sure that they were looking for a new technique at all. They built good churches because they were looking for God. And they were looking for God in a way that was pure and integral enough to make everything they did and everything they touched give glory to God.

They knew a good building would praise God better than a bad one, even if the bad one were covered all over with official symbols of praise.

I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.

The Eiffel Tower is the Empire State Building after taxes.

The loftier the building, the deeper must the foundation be laid.

All civilisation begins with a theocracy and ends with a democracy. This law of liberty succeeding unity is written in architecture.