Who’s afraid of the big, bad buildings? Everyone, because there are so many things about gigantism that we just don’t know. The gamble of triumph or tragedy at this scale — and ultimately it is a gamble — demands an extraordinary payoff. The trade center towers could be the start of a new skyscraper age or the biggest tombstones in the world.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the duality of monumental architecture, highlighting both its potential for greatness and the risks involved.
In this quote, Ada Louise Huxtable emphasizes the fear and uncertainty that come with large-scale architectural projects like skyscrapers. While such constructions can symbolize progress and innovation, they also carry the risk of failure, becoming not just awe-inspiring achievements but also reminders of human hubris if they end tragically. The quote encapsulates the tension between ambition and caution in the face of monumental design.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about urban development and the challenges of architectural design.
Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.
Modern buildings of our time are so huge that one must group them. Often the space between these buildings is as important as the buildings themselves.
Why should we build very large spaces when they are not necessary? We can design halls spanning several kilometres and covering a whole city, but we have to ask, what does it really make? What does society really need?
It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.
Architects mostly work for privileged people, people who have money and power. Power and money are invisible, so people hire us to visualize their power and money by making monumental architecture. I love to make monuments, too, but I thought perhaps we can use our experience and knowledge more for the general public, even for those who have lost their houses in natural disasters.
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
A building should appear to grow easily from its site and be shaped to harmonize with its surroundings if Nature is manifest there.
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