Professional Documents
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Famous Architect's Dictums
Famous Architect's Dictums
Ruskin
Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety,
and Economy. All of these must be built with due reference to durability,
convenience, and beauty. Durability will be assured when foundations are carried
down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected; convenience,
when the arrangement of the apartments is faultless and presents no hindrance to
use, and when each class of building is assigned to its suitable and appropriate
exposure; and beauty, when the appearance of the work is pleasing and in good
taste, and when its members are in due proportion according to correct principles
of symmetry Vitruvius
Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought
together in light Le Corbusier
Anyone entering on the study of architecture must understand that even though a
plan may have abstract beauty on paper, the four facades may seem well-
balanced and the total volume well-proportioned, the building itself may turn
out to be poor architecture. Internal space, that space which cannot be completely
represented in any form, which can be grasped and felt only through direct
experience is the protagonist of architecture. To grasp space, to know how to see
it, is the key to understanding the building. Bruno Zevi
Architecture, painting , and sculpture are called the fine arts. They appeal to the
eye as music does to the ear. But architecture is not judged by visual appeal alone.
Building affect all of the human senses sound, smell, touch, taste, and vision
Forrest Wilson
It became apparent to us that architecture is generally assumed to be a highly
specialized system with a set of prescribed technical goals rather than a sensual
art responsive to real human desires and feelings. This limitation is most
frighteningly manifested in the reliance on two dimensional diagrams that lay more
stress on the quantifiable features of building organization than on the
polychromatic and three dimensional qualities of the whole architectural
experience. Kent Bloomer & Charles Moore
The only way you can build, the only way to you can get the building into being, is
through the measurable. You must follow the laws of nature and use quantities of
brick, methods of construction, and engineering. But in the end, when the building
becomes part of living, it evokes unmeasurable qualities, and the spirit of its
existence takes over. Louis Kahn
Built environments have various purposes; to shelter people and their activities
and possessions from the elements, from human and animals enemies, and from
supernatural powers; to establish place; to create humanized, safe area in a
profane and potentially dangerous world; to stress social identity and indicate
status; and so on. Thus the origins of architecture are best understood if one
takes a wider view and considers sociocultural factors, in the broadest sense, to be
more important than climate, technology, materials and economy Amos
Rapaport
I should believe the buildings Kenneth Clark
We require of any building, that it act well, and do the things it was intended to do
in the best way; that It speak well, and say the things it was intended to say in
the best words; that it look well, and please us by its presence, whatever it has to
do or say John Ruskin
Architecture also exists without necessary assistance from an architect; and
architects sometimes create buildings which are not architecture Norval White
Architecture is produced by ordinary people, for ordinary people; therefore it
should be easily comprehensible to all Steen Eiler Rasmussen
BURNHAM, Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble,
DANIEL logical diagram once recorded will not die.
NERVI, PIER Structural correctness, which is identical with functional, technical &
LUIGI economic is a necessary & sufficient condition of satisfactory aesthetic
result.
MENDELSOH Architecture seizes upon space, encompasses space and is space itself.
N, ERICH
Architecture depends on the sensuous seizure by means of touch and
sight.
BREUER, A Building has straight geometrical lines. Even when these lines are free, it
MARCEL must always be evident that they have been studied & that they did not spring
LAJOS up simultaneously.