Everything we design is a response to the specific climate and culture of a particular place.
Interpretation
Design is shaped by the local environment and societal influences.
This quote emphasizes that all design—whether in architecture, fashion, or any other field—is inherently influenced by the local climate and cultural context. It suggests that successful design should consider the unique characteristics of its surrounding environment and the people who will interact with it, ensuring that it resonates with the local context and community.
In practice
In a speech about sustainable architecture, one might say, 'As Norman Foster pointed out, everything we design is a response to the specific climate and culture of a particular place.'
We now think it hilarious that medieval streets were used as open sewers. Equally, our descendants will say: 'You won't believe this, but people were once allowed to hurl a couple of tons of dangerous metal around smashing into each other.'
As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.
Every time I've flown an aircraft, or visited a steelworks, or watched a panel-beater at work, I've learned something new that can be applied to buildings.
The most amazing lesson in aerodynamics I ever had was the day I climbed a thermal in a glider at the same time as an eagle. I witnessed, close up, effortlessness and lightness combined with strength, precision and determination.
It takes a lot of effort to make a building look effortless.
Architecture is an expression of values.
Can a film really change anything? I mean, what was the last time? Maybe the Italian neo-realists, where they became the voice and the heart and the soul of Italy, a nation that had been destroyed. I don't know.
There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.
Anybody with artistic ambitions is always trying to reconnect with the way they saw things as a child.
Supreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.
Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.'
When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.