Frank Gehry Quotes

Nothing requires the architect's care more than the due proportions of buildings.

I wanted a real profession. And I'd always been interested in architecture and in design and in, really, what makes things work. And understanding what's kind of behind the walls and why things stand up and some things don't.

I don't see that any buildings should be excluded from the term architecture, as long as they are done properly.

I am very interested in architecture. I've been asked if I'd ever direct, but me, I'd rather build. It's very similar to directing, because you get to walk among this piece of art, to live in it, be surrounded by it, which is just thrilling.

Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived.

Architecture theory is very interesting.

To make architecture with any real value is a massive challenge.

So what we have tried to do in our later buildings is to try to be completely consistent, as a painter is consistent or as a sculptor is consistent. Architecture also must be very consistent.

My interest in architecture has always been sculptural. Most of my photography is of architecture.

Architecture is a very dangerous job. If a writer makes a bad book, eh, people don't read it. But if you make bad architecture, you impose ugliness on a place for a hundred years.

Architecture is restricted to such a limited vocabulary. A building is either a high-rise or a perimeter block or a town house.

You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.' And you say to brick, 'Look, I want one, too, but arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel.' And then you say: 'What do you think of that, brick?' Brick says: 'I like an arch.'

Of course I know very little about architecture, and the older I get the less I know.

There are a lot of questions about whether architecture is art. The people who ask that think pretty tract houses are architecture. But that doesn't hold up.

Architecture is not an inspirational business, it's a rational procedure to do sensible and hopefully beautiful things; that's all.

If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.

The oldest book I have is a treatise on architecture from the 17th century.

We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.

I have no requirements for a style of architecture.

Architecture is about aging well, about precision and authenticity. There is much more to the success of a building than what you can see. I'm not suggesting that gestural architecture is always superficial, but solid reasoning has its place.

Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.

There is still a real need for good quality architecture, not paper architecture, but the real stuff.

When I was in architecture school at Princeton, the worst thing you could say about someone was that they were eclectic.

I didn't know what architecture was except that I lived in a house. I don't even think that I knew the word for a long time. My dad funneled me into engineering because it was his background.

I could have been an architect, but I don't think I'd have been very happy. Nearly all modern architecture is a silly game as far as I can see.