Peter Eisenman Quotes

Downtown Toronto is a very good place to talk about the neutrality of modernist architecture. I'm sure this kind of box-building was interesting in the Twenties, Thirties and Forties, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous to build like this in 2013.

Architecture should be rooted in the past, and yet be part of our own time and forward looking.

When I started studying architecture, people would say, you know, 'Can you tell me why are all modern buildings so boring?' Because, like, people had this idea that in the good old days, architecture had, like, ornament and little towers and spires and gargoyles, and today, it just becomes very practical.

Many years ago, we were only able to build boxes. Today, architects from all over the world are working with us - Zaha Hadid from London, Gerkan, Marg and Partner from Hamburg, Kengo Kuma from Japan. We brought design and digitalization from abroad to China.

It is insufficient for architecture today to directly implement an existing building typology; it instead requires architects to carefully examine the whole area with new interventions and programmatic typologies

All architecture, classical or not, must have some sense of order, and order is much harder to achieve without the straight lines and right angles that have dominated the building art from time immemorial.

The speed of change makes you wonder what will become of architecture.

Working off one genius sketch is not the way great architecture should be made.

Our utilitarian structures will mature into architecture only when, through their fulfillment of function, they become carriers of the will of the age.

Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs.

The artistic capability of reinforced concrete is so fantastic - that is the way to go.

Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.

I don't want to do architecture that's dry and dull.

I am finally getting the chance to build large structures and break preconceptions that my designs are just sculptures for people to be in. But my work always comes down to the human scale.

The tall building, concentrating man in one place more densely than ever before, similarly concentrates the dilemma of our public architecture at the end of the twentieth century: whether the new forms made possible by technology are doomed by the low calculations of modern patrons and their architects.

Spiritual space is lost in gaining convenience. I saw the need to create a mixture of Japanese spiritual culture and modern western architecture.

French architecture always manages to combine the most magnificent underlying themes of architecture; like Roman design, it looks to the community.

I've always been attracted to classic patterns in architecture, music and drama.

Let us together create the new building of the future, which will be everything in one form: architecture and sculpture and painting.

There's a Danish architecture firm called BIG. I love architecture, and I always check out their work; they're very good at reimagining the way we live. They put the human experience as the focus, with access to air and outdoor space.

I object to the hegemony of form in contemporary architecture. We have very advanced technological tools, but ultimately, we create buildings exactly like we used to before: We send the drawings to an engineer and let him struggle with figuring out how to build it.

Not only did America invent the skyscraper, it invented the skyline.

My goal is always to create something exceptional that enhances cities and enriches the lives of the people who live and work in them.

I like going for walks in the western harbour, a newly-built area of Malmo where the old harbour used to be. It is surrounded by canals and waterways and the architecture is modern and innovative - the landmark Turning Torso skyscraper, designed by Santiago Calatrava, is the star of the show.

The shan-shui city idea is trying to bring traditional values and ways of living to modern high-rise architecture.