Building Aesthetics Quotes

Every one of my buildings begins with an Italian journey.

As a woman, I'm expected to want everything to be nice and to be nice myself. A very English thing. I don't design nice buildings - I don't like them. I like architecture to have some raw, vital, earthy quality.

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

Whereas in the Fall of 1980 the frame of the new Senate Office Building was covered with plastic sheathing in order that construction might continue during the winter months; and Whereas the plastic cover has now been removed revealing, as feared, a building whose banality is exceeded only by its expense; and Whereas, even in a democracy there are things that it is as well the people do not know about their government; Therefore, be it resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the plastic cover be put back.

It is the task of the architect to give life a gentler structure.

Buildings should not look like Lady Gaga.

I'm very interested in architecture.

We see buildings in Britain mostly as freestanding objects. They are not meant to have a dialogue with anything around them, or with history, or with ideas of any kind beyond the self-referential. What we call 'regeneration' is largely an excuse for building for maximum profit with a bit of sculptural design thrown in to catch the eye of the media.

An architect is not an artist but an optimistic realist.

All architecture, which does not express serenity, fails in its spiritual mission. Thus, it has been a mistake to abandon the shelter of walls for the inclemency of large areas of glass.

It's very homely, this castle. It doesn't have huge ballrooms. I didn't want a cold, cavernous place.

One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.

In architecture as in all other operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well building has three conditions: Commodity, Firmness and Delight.

in architecture, mediocrity is more glaringly obvious than in other lines - because there's a huge, physical object such as a building to demonstrate it.

The design of the building addresses the public nature of both the urban context and the internal program. In order to reinforce the building's associative or mimetic qualities, the facades are organized in a classical three-part division of base, middle or body, and attic or head.

To be an architect has been a life-long dream. Little did I know when asked at the age of 14 'what do you want to do when you grow up?' I said I wanted to be an architect. After 50 years I am still learning all what that means. Working together with so many people has been enormously gratifying. Being an architect means being a member of a fantastic team.

Buildings designed with careful attention to aesthetics arouse and enlighten their occupants and that promotes their good health.

Space, space: architects always talk about space! But creating a space is not automatically doing architecture. With the same space, you can make a masterpiece or cause a disaster.

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.

It takes a lot of effort to make a building look effortless.

The demands of the time for objectivity and functionality must be fulfilled. If that clearly happens, then the buildings of our day will convey the greatness of which the age is capable, and only a fool will maintain that they lack it.

I don't like to talk about sustainability, because sometimes I see green buildings that don't appear any different from those in the past.

My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.

Anybody I talk to agrees that maybe 2 percent of the building environment since the war, we could call architecture.

But now I know that it is very important that all buildings should be consistent, that this is the quality of the Gothic cathedral, for instance, that we like.