Moshe Safdie Quotes

The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics but that no architect worth their names wants to build a shoebox.

Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall.

I always have loved the Stradivarius. My teacher, Josef Gingold, he had a Stradivarius. As a treat, he would put it under my chin and let me play a few notes, and I remember that feeling of the overtones, the complexity of the sound. It's like a great wine.

I think it's one of my favourite theatres ever, so quirky and wonderful and steeped in history. The space is wonderful and the acoustics are brilliant.

Stradivarius, in particular, was the most amazing craftsman and one of the great artists and scientists that ever lived because he figured out something with the sound and the science of acoustics that we still don't understand it completely.

Architecture was always the plan. I always figured I'd just do theater on the side.

Theaters are great. They're designed to sound good, not for basketball.

You can't do opera when already from the 10th row you can only see little dolls on the stage. In such an enormous space you can't put much faith in the personal presence of the individual singer, which is reflected in facial expressions, among other things.

My background is in theater. I was a theater major in college.

Many of the Universities have very good Theatre Departments these days.

I love playing the Hard Rocks; they've got a great stage, great lighting, great sound, and not so humongous; its more intimate, so we love playing theaters and clubs where the audience has a really good chance to see and hear the group and where the acoustics are good. I like it when we can hear what we're doing.

I'm an old fashioned theater major at heart.

It wasn't very satisfying playing the big arenas, but it was good as far as a paycheck. But the sound was terrible, especially in hockey arenas - the sound would go on for 30 seconds after we quit playing.

Everywhere in the world, music enhances a hall, with one exception: Carnegie Hall enhances the music.

I'm constantly involved in theater, looking at theater, trying to do work in theater, support theater. And that's kind of my creative passion.

I went to the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago.

I spearhead interior design for all Trump projects.

Opera is too obsessed with buildings.

In theatre there is a certain discipline that you have to follow, and you have to be experienced to be performing in front of a live audience. It is satisfying to me.

I went to the theater school at DePaul University in Chicago, the Goodman School.

Carolines is the best. It has great sound, you can hear from the front all the way to the back with the same quality. If you want to see the top comics, go to Carolines.

Arenas, to me, and especially sheds, are really great venues. You get that sea of humanity, but everybody can still see it and hear it. And that's really important to us.

Acting is not a genteel profession. Actors used to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart. Those people's performances so troubled the onlookers that they feared their ghosts. An awesome compliment. Those players moved the audience not such that they were admitted to a school, or received a complimentary review, but such that the audience feared for their soul. Now that seems to me something to aim for.

I don't know what acting is, but I enjoy it. I think we ask too many questions of ourselves. We make too much importance of stuff. But I do say to actors when I have taught in classes, or when I sometimes do a talk to a group. I'll say, “If I never acted again, the world wouldn't stop, nor would it stop if I didn't stop acting. That's how important it is. I know it [seems] important when you're young. But I say, “Lighten up. Don't take it all so seriously.” All the gurus and teachers will take your money and run.

I am a showman by profession... and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.