Ma Yansong Quotes

I feel however, that we architects have a special duty and mission... (to contribute) to the socio-cultural development of architecture and urban planning.

I believe that architecture is fundamentally a public space where people can gather and communicate, think about the history, think about the lives of human beings, or the world.

Architecture is one of the art forms best able to improve and revitalise cities both artistically and functionally.

It's most satisfying to have an effect on the public realm - deep down I think it's what every architect wants to do.

All architecture has a public nature, I believe, so I would like to make a public space.

Architecture belongs to culture, not to civilization.

Somehow, architecture alters the way we think about the world and the way we behave. Any serious architecture, as a litmus test, has to be that.

It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone.

But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.

Architecture has always been a very idealistic profession. It's about making the world a better place, and it works over the generations because people go on vacation and they look for it.

I think architecture has to be a gift.

I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums, concert halls and civic buildings.

I hope you will understand that architecture has nothing to do with the inventions of forms. It is not a playground for children, young or old. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.

The future of architecture is culture.

Princeton University's campus environment presents unique challenges and opportunities for architecture to act as a social condenser.

Architecture is definitely a political act.

London is one of the most civilised places in the world for the procedure of making architecture and urban design.

For me, architecture is the means, not the end. It's a means of making different life forms possible.

My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we - architects - can effect the quality of life of the people.

Architecture is about public space held by buildings.

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.

I studied architecture in New York. So, really I was very moved, like everyone else, to try to contribute something that has that resonance and profundity of it means to all of us.

Architecture is a political art connecting our values to the ages.

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

Theatres, along with the likes of the Ulster Orchestra, for example, are the cultural heartbeats of our towns and cities, and without them, we are much poorer for it.