Life is more important than architecture.
Interpretation
Life takes precedence over physical structures and designs.
Oscar Niemeyer's quote emphasizes the importance of human experiences and the essence of life itself over the aesthetic and functional elements of architecture. It suggests that while architecture can beautify the environment, it is ultimately the people, their interactions, and their lives that give significance to such structures.
In practice
During a seminar on urban development, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for community-focused designs.
I deliberately disregarded the right angle and rationalist architecture designed with ruler and square to boldly enter the world of curves and straight lines offered by reinforced concrete... This deliberate protest arose from the environment in which I lived, with its white beaches, its huge mountains, its old baroque churches, and the beautiful suntanned women.
We need to feel that life is important; we need that fantasy so we can live a little better.
Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.
When you have a large space to conquer, the curve is the natural solution.
I was attracted by the curve β the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches.
Curves are the essence of my work because they are the essence of Brazil, pure and simple.
If you're going to be unreligious, it's likely going to be due to reflecting on it and finding some things that are hard to believe.
The Jesuits have a vow to obey the pope, but if the pope is a Jesuit, maybe he should have a vow to obey the superior general... I feel like I'm still a Jesuit in terms of my spirituality, what I have in my heart.
Beneatha: You didn't tell us what Alaiyo means... for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something... ... Asagai: It means... it means One for Whom Bread--Food--Is Not Enough.
From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.
Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
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