Architecture is a hazardous mixture of omnipotence and impotence. It is by definition a c h a o t i c a d v e n t u r e... In other words, the utopian enterprise.
Rem KoolhaasRead
Architects work in two ways. One is to respond precisely to a client's needs or demands. Another is to look at what the client asks and reinterpret it.
Interpretation
Architects balance client requests with their own creative interpretations.
This quote by Rem Koolhaas emphasizes the dual role of architects: they must not only meet the explicit demands of their clients but also reinterpret and bring their unique vision to those requests. This balancing act is crucial for creating spaces that fulfill clients' needs while also offering innovative and thought-provoking designs.
In practice
An architect might use this quote in a presentation to outline their design philosophy to potential clients.
Architecture is a hazardous mixture of omnipotence and impotence. It is by definition a c h a o t i c a d v e n t u r e... In other words, the utopian enterprise.
What is now called 'green architecture' is an opportunistic caricature of a much deeper consideration of the issues related to sustainability that architecture has been engaged with for many years. It was one of the first professions that was deeply concerned with these issues and that had an intellectual response to them.
The acceptance of certain realities doesn't preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs.
Architecture is a dangerous mix of power and importance.
Japan lives with drastic segregation between the sublime, the ugly, and the utterly without qualities. Dominance of the last 2 categories makes mere presence of the first stunning: when beauty 'happens', it is absolutely surprising.
We live in an almost perfect stillness and work with incredible urgency.
I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
The curves of your lips rewrite history.
As writers go, I have a skin of average thickness. I am pleased by a good review, disappointed by a bad. None of it penetrates far enough to influence the thing I write next.
I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god.
I've read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, 'Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.' I don't want to be part of that.
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