Too much of what passes for design now is theater. It's one thing to be eccentric- and by the way, most eccentrics tend to be rather well-educated people - and quite another to be a faddist, by which I mean someone who tries to conjure a totally foreign aesthetic in a misplaced environment.
Interpretation
Design should be genuine and suited to its environment, rather than simply following trends.
In this quote, Albert Hadley emphasizes the distinction between genuine creativity and mere trend-following in design. He critiques the tendency for design to become superficial or theatrical, arguing that true design should reflect both individuality and an understanding of context, rather than merely adopting fads that do not align with their surroundings.
In practice
In a design meeting to emphasize the importance of contextual design.
So many young decorators are trying to reinvent the wheel, and the results are sometimes very dubious. They're striving to do things that have never been done before. Quite often it is done without authority, without knowledge, and without a background in taste. They need to be educated about the past, and they need a richer vocabulary.
The essence of interior design will always be about people and how they live.
Decorating is not about making stage sets, it's not about making pretty pictures for the magazines, it's really about creating a quality of life, a beauty that nourishes the soul.
Decoration is really about creating a quality of life, and a beauty in that life that nourishes the soul, that makes life beautiful.
Movie acting is primarily listening. If you're really engaged, that's all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what's happening in your world.
Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
A novel should tell a story, be a pleasure to read, and at the same time it should be thought-provoking, even a bit instructive.
We don't need to illustrate music; music illustrates itself.
I'm the kind of person who would love to play whenever I felt like, with a band, and it might as well be the Holiday Inn in Nebraska - somewhere where no one knows you, and you're in a band situation just playing music.
There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.
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