Instead of using the machine as a metaphor for architecture, as Le Corbusier did, I use the human body. I want the public to know that it's them I'm designing for.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes designing architecture that is human-centric rather than machine-centric.
Michael Graves expresses a philosophy of architecture that prioritizes the human experience over mechanical or industrial design aesthetics. He contrasts traditional views, such as those of Le Corbusier, and emphasizes the importance of recognizing the users of a space, aiming to create designs that resonate with people's needs and feelings, making architecture a reflection of humanity itself.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation on modern architectural philosophy.
Form must never trump function. Some objects are made to look so smooth, you don't know where to pick them up or how to turn them on. If I'm designing a garlic press or cheese grater, I need my hand to fit comfortably on it. I like to know, instinctively, how to use it.
Good design should be available to everyone - and I do mean everyone. What I spent on the wheelchair I'm in could buy a small Mercedes. It's not only unfair to me; it's unfair to someone who's indigent but has the same needs. My goal is to make all objects affordable.
We've taken on health care in a big way in our office, ever since nine years ago when I was paralyzed. I was in eight different hospitals, three different rehab centers, and all the rooms were dreadful. As an architect, designer, and patient, I can do something to help.
I believe well-designed places and objects can actually improve healing, while poor design can inhibit it.
I'm definitely influenced by the music. We dance to music, and you have to listen to it and phrase your dancing and movement in a certain way to compliment the music. We have to work hand in hand, the dancer and the music.
If you give an answer to your viewer, your film will simply finish in the movie theatre. But when you pose questions, your film actually begins after people watch it. In fact, your film will continue inside the viewer.
When you know what an actor has, you can reach in and arouse it. If you don't know what he has, you don't know what the hell is going on.
There are other singers of ranchera music who sing very beautifully, but you can tell from the way they sing that they never lived on a ranch. They never knew what it was to milk a cow, to birth a calf, to shoe a horse. I've lived all that.
Good poets borrow, great poets steal
The orange sky is rolling across the sky like a severed head, gentle light glimmers in the ravines among the clouds, the banners of the sunset are fluttering above our heads. The stench of yesterday’s blood and slaughtered horses drips into the evening chill.
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