Like breathing was easy.
— The xx, “Angels”
There is always a group of solutions, one of which is the best under certain conditions.
— Karl Gerstner, “Designing Programmes”
All normal buildings are unique solutions to specific problems.
— Reyner Banham, The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment
Where the handouts grow on bushes.
And you sleep out every night.
— Harry McClintock, “In the Big Rock Candy Mountains”
A room is not an incubator to be sterilized of all foreign germs. The forms of life, past and present, shall be given an opportunity to interact.
— Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command
How strange to think of India!
Wealth is nothing but lack of people.
— Robert Bly, “Sunday in Glastonbury"
I’m talking about taking it out and chopping it up.
— Royal Tenenbaum, The Royal Tenenbaums
In 1965 Le Corbusier drowned swimming in the sea.
— Adolfo Natalini, “How Great Architecture Was In 1966”
Edgar Degas purchased once
A fine El Greco, which he kept
Against the wall beside his bed
To hang his pants on while he slept.
— Richard Wilbur, “Museum Piece”
I listen to my words, but they fall far below.
— Cat Stevens, “The Wind”
I do not know. Possibly in the belief it’d make him more dead.
— Rooster Cogburn, True Grit
Grounds & Buildings
Always Constructive
— Hat
A rational extension of the old religious systems, of old tales, and above all of psychoanalysis, into architectural expression becomes more an more urgent as all the reasons for becoming impassioned disappear.
— Gilles Ivain, “Formulary for a New Urbanism”
Like many magical people, they have nephews.
— P. Adam Sitney
The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world.
— Gustav Adolf Ekdahl, Fanny and Alexander
A jelly mould for the Unité.
— Colin Rowe & Fred Koetter, Collage City
Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle?
— Mr. Fox, Fantastic Mr. Fox
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
— Sweet Brown, “Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That (Autotune Remix)”
Wherever the building takes us.
— Kristin Cotter
They are meaningless unless you measure them.
— Michael Gordin