We are not peddlers of the fashionable. We believe that good design defies fashion, is truly innovative, eminently sensible, yet a source of inspiration to those who have the pleasure of living with it.
There is an increasing awareness of the interrelatedness of things. We are becoming less prone to accept an immediate solution without questioning its larger implications.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the growing understanding of how everything is connected and the importance of questioning quick solutions.
Arthur Erickson's quote reflects a shift in perspective where individuals are becoming more conscious of the complex web of interconnections in our world. It suggests that as awareness increases, people are less willing to accept simple, immediate answers without considering the broader consequences of their decisions. This encourages a deeper examination of our choices and their impacts on the larger system.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about environmental policies, this quote could serve as a reminder to consider long-term impacts rather than just immediate benefits.
More from Arthur Erickson
All quotes βDoes an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place in all this? Unfortunately we are no longer the interpreters of our culture's myths but the followers of that dubious client, the developer, who has little patience with the art of architecture, the fine detail and obscure promise, which can upset his financial activity.
The tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before.
Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us.
Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.
The obsession with performance left no room for the development of the intuitive or spiritual impact of space and form other than the aesthetic of the machine itself.
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From a Buddhist point of view, emotions are not real. As an actor, I manufacture emotions. They're a sense of play. But real life is the same. We're just not aware of it.
The need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla.
Call a thing immoral or ugly, soul-destroying or a degradation to man, a peril to the peace of the world or to the well-being of future generations: as long as you have not shown it to be "uneconomic" you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow, and prosper.
Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules.
What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen.
Reality, by itself, becomes a story by Philip K. Dick.