Famous Architecture Quotes

“When I’m working on a problem, I

never think about beauty. But
“God is in the details.”
when I’ve finished, if the solution is
– Mies van der Rohe
not beautiful I know it’s wrong.”
– Buckminster Fuller
“Form ever follows function.”
– Louis Sullivan
“As an architect you design for the
present, with an awareness of the
“Recognizing the need is the
past, for a future which is
primary condition for design.”
essentially unknown.”
– Charles Eames
– Norman Foster

“Architecture is the learned game,

“To provide meaningful
correct and magnificent, of forms
architecture is not to parody
assembled in the light.”
history but to articulate it.”
– Le Corbusier
– Daniel Libeskind

“An idea is salvation by

“To create, one must first question
imagination.”
everything.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright
– Eileen Gray

“Less is more.”
“Architecture is really about well-
– Mies van der Rohe
being. I think that people want to
feel good in a space… On the one
“Not many architects have the
hand it’s about shelter, but it’s also
luxury to reject significant things.”
about pleasure.”
– Rem Koolhaas
– Zaha Hadid

“A doctor can bury his mistakes,

“Simplicity is the ultimate
but an architect can only advise his
sophistication.” – Leonardo da
clients to plant vines.”
Vinci
– Frank Lloyd Wright

“There are 360 degrees, so why

“Architecture should speak of its
stick to one?”
time and place, but yearn for
– Zaha Hadid
timelessness.”
– Frank Gehry
 “I don’t know why people hire MAILLART, ROBERT
(February 6, 1872 – April 5, 1940)
architects and then tell them what
to do.” “A bridge is like a house.”
– Frank Gehry
BURNHAM, DANIEL
“Make big plans; aim high in hope and work,
“One of the great beauties of remembering that a noble, logical diagram
architecture is that each time, it is once recorded will not die.”
like life starting all over again.”
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to
– Renzo Piano stir men’s blood.”
“The mother art is architecture.
Without an architecture of our own SAARINEN, ELIEL
GOTTLIEB ELIEL SAARINEN
we have no soul of our own (August 20, 1873 – July 1, 1950)
civilization.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright “Beauty grows from necessity not from
repetition of formulas.”

My work is not about “form follows “Architectural-form equals social-form.”

function”, but “form follows SAARINEN, EERO
(August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961)
beauty” or, even better, “form
follows feminine”. – Oscar
Niemeyer “Function influence but does not dictate
form.”

SULLIVAN, LOUIS PERRET, AUGUSTE

“Form follows function.” (February 12, 1874 - February 25, 1954)
“Truth is indispensible to Architecture &
GAUDI, ANTONIO architectural lie concepts.”
“Form does not necessarily follow function.”
NIEMEYER, OSCAR
WRIGHT, FRANK LLOYD Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares
“Form follows function- that has been Filho
misunderstood. Form and function should be (December 15, 1907 – December 5, 2012)
one, joined in a spiritual union.”
“Form follows beauty.”
“Every great architect is –necessarily- a great
poet. He must be a great original interpreter “Architecture is invention.”
of his time, his day, his age.”
NERVI, PIER LUIGI
GROPUIS, WALTER (June 21, 1891 – January 9, 1979)
“Art and Architecture, the new unity.”
“Structural correctness, which is identical
KAHN, LOUIS with functional, technical & economic is a
“Architecture is the reaching out for the truth” necessary & sufficient condition of
satisfactory aesthetic result.”
“A house is a house.”
LUDWIG, MIES VAN DER ROHE
Maria Ludwig Michael Mies
(March 27, 1886 – August 19, 1969) “Architecture begins where engineering ends”

“Less is more.” BREUER, MARCEL LAJOS

(May 21, 1902 – July 1, 1981)
“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated
into space.” “A Building has straight geometrical lines.
Even when these lines are free, it must
“Architecture starts when you carefully put always be evident that they have been
two bricks together. There it begins.” studied & that they did not spring up
simultaneously.”
MENDELSOHN, ERICH
(March 21, 1887 – September 15, 1953) “Nature & Architecture are two different
things.”
“Architecture seizes upon space,
encompasses space and is space itself.” “Architecture is a social art.”

“Architecture depends on the sensuous POCIO, MARCUS VITRUVIUS

seizure by means of touch and sight.” “Architecture must meet 3 requirements:
strength, beauty, and unity.”
LOOS , ADOLF
(December 10, 1870 – August 23, 1933)

“Supply and demand regulate architecture

form”

LE CORBUSIER
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris
(October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965)

“The house is a Machine to live in.”

“Cube within a cube.”

LATROBE , BENJAMIN H.
(May 1, 1764 – September 3, 1820)

“A bldg. is the combination of different

geometric figures.”

JOHNSON, PHILIP CORTELYOU

(July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005)

“Architecture is the art of how to waste space

”

“All architects want to live beyond their

deaths.”

GROPIUS, WALTER
(May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969)