There are more people living in Lower Manhattan now than before the terrorist attacks. That's faith for you. There's such a strong spirit here.
Daniel LibeskindRead
Winning a competition in architecture is a ticket to oblivion. It's just an idea. Ninety-nine per cent never get built.
Interpretation
Winning an architectural competition often means little if the design is never realized.
Daniel Libeskind's quote highlights the reality that although winning prestigious competitions may bring recognition to architects, most designs remain unrealized and fade into obscurity. This reflects the gap between creative ideas and their practical implementation in the built environment, suggesting that the creative process is not just about accolades but also about how ideas translate into reality.
In practice
During a presentation on the challenges of bringing architectural ideas to life, you might quote Libeskind to emphasize the importance of actual implementation.
There are more people living in Lower Manhattan now than before the terrorist attacks. That's faith for you. There's such a strong spirit here.
Architecture is not just for the moment, it is not just for the next fashion magazine.
And you have to remember that I came to America as an immigrant. You know, on a ship, through the Statue of Liberty. And I saw that skyline, not just as a representation of steel and concrete and glass, but as really the substance of the American Dream.
In a strange way, architecture is really an unfinished thing, because even though the building is finished, it takes on a new life. It becomes part of a new dynamic: how people will occupy it, use it, think about it.
I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums, concert halls and civic buildings.
Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It's based on wonder.
Coffee falls into the stomach... ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink...
And then there came the pounding of another drum, as if another giant were coming yards behind him, and each giant, intent on his own drum, gave no notice to the rhythm of the other. The sound grew louder and louder until it seemed to fill not just my hearing but all my senses, to be throbbing in my lips and fingers, in the flesh of my temples, in my veins.
I read a great deal of science fiction with consummate pleasure between, say, the ages of 12 and 16. Then I got away from it. In my mid- to late 20s, I started trying to write it.
The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture βThis is a pipeβ, I'd have been lying!
Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy. Marilyn Monroe, because she was a curvy woman. I'm drawn to things that have the same kind of silhouettes as what she wore because our bodies are similar.
Is it wrong, wanting to be at home with your record collection? It's not like collecting records is like collecting stamps, or beermats, or antique thimbles. There's a whole world in here, a nicer, dirtier, more violent, more peaceful, more colorful, sleazier, more dangerous, more loving world than the world I live in; there is history, and geography, and poetry, and countless other things I should have studied at school, including music.
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