One thing I learn - I've been in practice now for half a century or more, and the most important ingredient for an architect to do a good building is to have a good client. I think a client counts for as much as fifty per cent.
I own buildings. I'm a builder; I know how to build. Nobody can build like I can build. Nobody. And the builders in New York will tell you that. I build the best product. And my name helps a lot.
If you look at a building by Mies van der Rohe, it might look very simple, but up close, the sheer quality of construction, materials and thought are inspirational.
Architecture trumps licensing any time.
When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.
If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.
The private buildings [of Virginia] are very rarely constructed of stone or brick; much the greatest proportion being of scantlingand boards, plastered with lime. It is impossible to devise things more ugly, uncomfortable, and happily more perishable.
Throughout the ages it has always been possible to point to good and bad architecture.
There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories - simple.
I don't see that any buildings should be excluded from the term architecture, as long as they are done properly.
I taught at Princeton for 39 years, and the school of architecture on the campus is the worst building on the campus.
Melbourne is wonderfully altered since I last saw it. There are some very fair buildings in it now, and things are a little cheaper than they used to be.
Because, if we understand how a building is to be produced and we find a way that it can be more simply produced, then obviously we are contributing to building better buildings more easily.
We have become so quick and effective in building things today. It would be easy to build another Pyramid of Giza or another Great Wall. But these buildings haven't withstood the test of time because of their building quality. They stand tall because they have a symbolic value, they represent a culture.
Britain gets the architecture it deserves. We don’t value architecture, we don’t take it seriously, we don’t want to pay for it and the architect isn’t trusted.
The quality of the Neues Museum's construction is extraordinary even by German standards, and people can smell that quality. The concept would not have been so convincing without it.
One of the general considerations about new buildings is that people tend to say that anything new is a monstrosity. And then after a while they either accept them or they go on thinking that they are monstrosities. Reactions vary. This depends to some extent on the quality of the building.
