Belgrade is the ugliest city in the world in the most beautiful place in the world.
Le CorbusierRead
A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe and 50 times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the dual nature of cities like New York, portraying it as both chaotic and beautiful.
Le Corbusier's quote captures the essence of New York City as a place of contrasts, where the chaotic energy of urban life can be seen as both disastrous and enchanting. By highlighting the city's complexities, he acknowledges that beauty can emerge from chaos, prompting a deeper appreciation for the multifaceted experiences that urban living offers. It suggests that one can have conflicting feelings about a place, recognizing its flaws while also seeing its captivating allure.
In practice
During a lecture on urban architecture, to illustrate the dichotomy of city life.
Belgrade is the ugliest city in the world in the most beautiful place in the world.
Our world, like a charnel-house, is strewn with the detritus of dead epochs.
The history of architecture is the history of the struggle for light.
Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.
The purpose of construction is TO MAKE THINGS HOLD TOGETHER; of architecture TO MOVE US.
Light creates ambience and feel of a place, as well as the expression of a structure.
Properly speaking, all true work is religion.
He that does good to another does good also to himself, not only in the consequence but in the very act. For the consciousness of well-doing is in itself ample reward.
I don't mean to say that I'm about to state my credo here on this page, but merely to affirm, sincerely for the first time in my life, my belief in man as an individual and independent entity. Certainly not independence in the everyday sense of the word, but pertaining to a freedom and mobility of thought that few people are able - or even have the courage - to achieve.
We want to know not how we should pray if we were perfect but how we should pray being as we now are ... It is no use to ask God with factitious earnestness for A when our whole mind is in reality filled with the desire for B. We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.
The unity of the bourgeoisie can be shaken only by the unity of the proletariat.
People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.
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