Ben Nicholson Quotes

I see my buildings as pieces of cities, and in my designs I try to make them into responsible and contributing citizens.

The Old City of Jerusalem is in our hands.

I would never call Jerusalem beautiful or comfortable or consoling. But there's something about it that you can't turn away from.

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

Our eternal capital Jerusalem was and remains our top national priority.

The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.

In Paris, there has to be a presence. History becomes the most interesting when it's compared to the present. I mean there's a whole group of people that want to build new buildings that look like old buildings.

After all, I think Jerusalem is part of the, of the world's heritage.

One great building does not make a great city.

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.

Cities are about juxtaposition. In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like. In Bordeaux, we built law courts right next door to what is effectively a listed historic building, and that makes it exciting.

Architecture is a slow business, and city planning even slower.

Paris enjoys a high reputation for the style of its public edifices, and, while there is a very great deal to condemn, compared with other capitals, I think it is entitled to a distinguished place in this particular.

Jerusalem is ... the fabled city which for the Western mind is as much dream as stone ... a compressed symbol of our most sublime aspirations along with our most disgusting, hatefully brainless excursions into religious bigotry and fratricide.

Cities are never random. No matter how chaotic they might seem, everything about them grows out of a need to solve a problem

When people condemn me for designing iconic buildings in cities and not having an idea what a city is, they haven't done their homework. I started in urban design and city planning. It's just that when I got out of school there wasn't much of a market for that. There still isn't.

Jerusalem is a port city on the shore of eternity.

I don't want to bring a European city or an east-coast city to the West Coast.

The architect aspires to build in a city as the artist aspires to exhibit his works in a museum.

In Manchester, you don't have proper tall buildings. Or in Munich.

Lucknow's architecture is a part of life in the city.

It's incredible that the layout of the centre of Chester, for instance, is still essentially that of the original Roman fort.

Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people, and the modern presence there just cements this.

I love the South Bank: every era of architecture is there, and you can stop, look, and listen.

Chaoyang Park Plaza is about how to carry the traditional culture into a new format in modern architecture. Instead of building a boundary between the city and the park, I tried to design this building to emerge from the natural landscape.