Quotes on Building

When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way - before one began.

Thousands of years ago, weren't we capable of building enormous structures like the pyramids? Weren't we capable of worshiping gods, weaving, making fire, finding lovers and wives, sending written messages? Of course we were. But although we've succeeded in replacing slaves with wage slaves, all the advances we've made have been in the field of science. Human beings are still asking the same questions as their ancestors. In short, they haven't evolved at all.

Some people have better ideas than others; some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.

Managers often hold on to resisters because of a specific skill set or because they've been around for a long time. Don't.

Every employee, not just the senior people, should know how a company is doing.

I never design a building before I've seen the site and met the people who will be using it.

There are roles I am never considered for. Meryl Streep roles, let's say. Why not? I really wanted to do 'Ironweed,' for example, because the depression era in this country was one of the best for multiracial people, because everybody was poor. Everybody lived in the tents, and under buildings, and under gratings, together.

When you look more generally at life on Earth, you find that it is all the same kind of life. There are not many different kinds; there's only one kind. It uses about fifty fundamental biological building blocks, organic molecules.

The more sophisticated we get, the more advanced our buildings and vehicles become, the more vulnerable we are.

Walls don't work. ... Instead of building walls to create security, we need to build bridges.

When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material.

Great buildings, like great mountains, are the work of centuries.

There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.

You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that.

I think of writing as a sculptural medium. You are not building things. You are removing things, chipping away at language to reveal a living form.

In architecture it isn't enough to just have the right building that works well. It can also be beautiful. It can also be different. It can create surprise. And surprise is the main thing in a work of art. [] I like and respect Brasí­lia very much. It is a simple city, a rational one. I always defend the urban design of Brasí­lia

A building should appear to grow easily from its site and be shaped to harmonize with its surroundings if Nature is manifest there.

True ornament is not a matter of prettifying externals. It is organic with the structure it adorns, whether a person, a building, or a park. At its best it is an emphasis of structure, a realization in graceful terms of the nature of that which is ornamented

The city of Chandigarh is planned to human scale. It puts us in touch with the infinite cosmos and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities by which the citizens can live a full and harmonious life. Here the radiance of nature and heart are within our reach.

We must be as familiar with the functions of our building as with our materials. We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be.

It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.