6 days ago11 min read

100 Quotes that will Change your Perception of Architecture and Life by Architects and Celebrities

A lover of discovering new places and a workaholic, in short, an architect.

Frases de arquitectura dichas por arquitectos y famosos, revista focus latinoamerica

In the vast universe of architecture, words not only describe buildings and structures, but also spark inspiration and reflection. In this article, we invite you to explore a unique compendium:

100 Quotes from Architects and Famous People on Architecture and Life

In addition, by clicking on each phrase, you can download it in image format, taking with you the inspiration and wisdom of great architectural visionaries.

Tell me in comments your opinion about your favorite phrase.

ADOLF LOOS

“The building should be silly on the outside and only reveal the richness on the inside”.

“Architecture is not art, it is construction”.

“Decoration is not necessary if the materials are good”.

ALBERTO CAMPO BAEZA

“If a work is intense, valid and has a powerful idea, it will make the imperfections remain in the background”.

“The architect who only knows about architecture, doesn't even know about architecture.”

“Light is not something vain or diffuse that can be taken for granted as the mere fact that it is always there. The sun does not rise in vain every day.”

“My architecture is not untouchable, if it were, I would be stupid.”

“The first step is through our hands, to produce the drawings.... Without the hands it would be difficult for an architect to succeed, impossible...”.

ALBERTO KALACH

“I want to thank the real heroes of construction because I don't make buildings, I just make buildings.”

“Drawing is like writing a text, you don't just throw words around wildly, words want to say something, and drawing too, it's a work of thought.”

“Everyone by nature has something of an architect, the need to modify space.”

“For the phenomenon of architecture to happen, there has to be sacrifice.

“We don't build buildings, we build models”.

“The architect also has to focus on planning, the organization of the territory, it is part of architecture to control, order and shape the territory.... And a good part of Mexico is not planned, everything can happen in any way”.

ALEJANDRO ARAVENA

“We need to find a parallel narrative to the Kardashian's of the world about what is valuable.”

“The quality of a city should be measured by the things you can do for free in it.”

“If you believe in something, you have to be brave enough so that if the decisions you make don't follow the herd, you can move on.”

“The city can function as a shortcut to equity.”

“Housing requires professional quality work, not professional charity.”

“Scarcity of resources forces us into an abundance of common sense.”

ALVAR AALTO

“Man cannot create without simultaneously destroying”.

“Making architecture more human means achieving a much broader functionalism than the purely technical.”

“Apple blossoms are standardized, and they are all different at the same time. This is how we should learn to build.

ANNA WINTOUR

“It's always about timing. If it's too early, no one understands, if it's too late, everyone forgets.”

ANTONIO GAUDI

“Originality consists in the return to the origin; thus, originality is that which returns to the simplicity of the first solutions”.

“The architect is the synthetic man, the one who is able to see things as a whole before they are made.”

“Life is a path of coming and going, of falling and rising, of movement and stillness, of struggle and repose.”

ARISTOTELES

“By dint of building well you become a good architect.”

AYN RAND

“I don't build to have clients. I have clients to build.”

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

“The degree of freedom of a country is the degree of its progress.”

BJARKE INGELS

“Architecture is about trying to make the world more like our dreams.”

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication in architectural design.”

“Architecture has the power to change the way we experience the world.”

“Sustainability can't be like some kind of moral sacrifice or political dilemma. It has to be a design challenge.”

CARME PINOS

“Architecture builds landscape or builds city: it is not sculpture.”

“Architecture is responsible for and a consequence of our way of socializing.”

CAROLINA HERRERA

“Now everyone wants to be that thing Americans call cool, for me cool is a glass of water with lots of ice.”

DALE CARNEGIE

“When dealing with people we must remember that they are emotional creatures, bristling with prejudice and driven by pride and vanity.”

“What makes you happy or unhappy is not what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing. It's what you think.”

“The only way to influence people is to talk about what the other wants.”

DEBBIE MILLMAN

“Failure is something we must accept; if you don't make the mistakes, you're not taking risks.”

DIEBEDO FRANCIS KERÉ

“Architecture is much more than art and building construction, architecture delivers energy, it makes people proud.”

“Architecture is not a whim, but a great responsibility.”

“I sat with over a hundred children in a dark, hot classroom with low seating. I made a promise to make things better.”

“If we learn to build with local materials, we will have a future.”

ENRIQUE PEÑALOSA

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have a car, it is a place where the rich go by public transport.”

FERNANDA CANALES

“When we improve a house, we improve the city”.

“The great challenge is to ensure that Mexico builds respecting the projects and the authorship, so that Frankensteins are not made of the projects...especially in cases of public works.”

“The growth of cities is not being planned. For example, what goes beyond a particular lot: garbage, water, public transportation, drainage.... Not even the sidewalks.

FRAN SILVESTRE

“Behind a good project is a great client.”

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

“A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can hardly advise his clients to plant vines.”

“Talent is good, practice is excellent, but passion is best.”

“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and a constant devotion to the things you want to make happen.”

GABRIELA CARRILLO

“Doing architecture is a much more complex process than just designing, in the end it is the way to make a project a reality”.

“I think it's important to read and listen to what architects are saying, because our architecture students are no longer paying attention to ideas; they are almost completely driven by images.”

GIANCARLO MAZZANTI

“Architecture is an act of optimistic social transformation that builds social welfare.”

“The value of architecture is not only in itself, but in what it is capable of producing in social and behavioral terms.”

JAVIER SENOSIAN

“Society is changing and architecture must also change.”

“The craftsman works with his hands and head, and the artist works with his hands, head and heart.”

“The most important thing is to create spaces where people feel happy.”

JUAN O’GORMAN

“Mexico to me represents love, peace and all that is magnificent and wonderful in the world.”

“Most mortals, perhaps, have their house for a castle, but the architect often considers his as a laboratory.”

“History is the memory of the people; my murals would come to be part of that memory, if we understand our roots, we have confidence in our future.”

“The architecture that solves the palpable needs, that do not confuse, that can prove its existence.... It is the true and unique architecture of our time”.

KARL LAGERFIELD

“I have my feet on the ground, just not on this earth.”

LE CORBUSIER

“The house must be the case of life, the machine of happiness”.

“Architecture should be the expression of our time and not a plagiarism of past cultures.”

“Only what cannot be explained is worth learning.”

LEONARDO DA VINCI

“Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.”

LINA BO BARDI

“The purpose of a house is to provide a good and comfortable life, and it would be a mistake to value a solely decorative result.”

“There is a flavor of victory and charm in being simple. It doesn't take much to be much.”

“The past does not return. Important are continuity and a perfect knowledge of your history.”

LOUIS KAHN

“Architecture is not only a profession, it is a passion that consumes every fiber of your being.”

“Architecture is the reach of truth.”

“Architecture does not exist, there is the work of architecture”.

“Architecture is the thoughtful elaboration of spaces.”

“The sun did not know its greatness until it struck a building.”

LUIS BARRAGÁN

“It is essential for the architect to know how to see; I mean, to see in such a way that purely rational analysis is not superimposed.”

“Any architectural work that does not express serenity is a mistake.”

“From most architectural publications and the daily press, the words beauty, poetry, enchantment, magic, sortilege, enchantment, serenity, silence, astonishment have disappeared. All of them very dear to me.”

“My house is my refuge, an emotional piece of architecture, not a cold piece of convenience.”

“I have dedicated myself to architecture as a sublime act of poetic imagination. In me it rewards anyone who pursues poetry and beauty.”

MICHEL ROJKIND

“Architecture is one more component to bring about change in society.”

“I don't want to be iconic because of a style, I want to be iconic because I have made a difference.”

“Luckily, nowadays it is more accepted to show off the people you collaborate with. The future depends on interdisciplinary work.”

“The Mexican is resourceful because of a survival issue.”

“I don't believe in a palette of 3 materials, I trained myself as an architect to look for each project to have its own identity”.

MIES VAN DER ROHE

“Architecture is the will of the age translated space.”

“Architecture begins when two bricks are put together.”

“The structure is the whole. From top to bottom, down to the last detail, it is inspired by the same idea. That's what we call structure.”

MIGUEL FISAC

“The rule of architecture is to do things with love and obsession in great proportion.”

OSCAR NIEMEYER

“If a straight line is the shortest path between two points, the curve is what makes concrete seek infinity.”

“Architecture is a matter of dreams and fantasies, of generous curves and wide, open spaces.”

“Life always seemed more important to me than architecture.”

PAULO MENDES DA ROCHA

“The purpose of architecture is to support the unpredictability of life.”

“The ideal project does not exist, but in every project there is the possibility of approaching it.”

PEDRO RAMIREZ VAZQUEZ

“Architecture cannot be captured with photographs, it is not an object, architecture is lived, it is inhabited, it is used.”

“You have to go on, you have to go on. Age is never an obstacle.

PETER GREENAWAY

“If I ever reincarnated I would like it to be an architect, because you can avoid cinema, stop listening to music, ignore painting, but never architecture.”

RAFAEL MONEO

“I thank architecture because it has allowed me to see the world through its eyes.”

“The more advanced a country becomes, the less attention is paid to architecture.”

“The satisfaction of an architect is that his designs are absorbed by people.”

REM KOOLHAAS

“Infrastructure is more important than architecture.”

“A building has 2 lives. The one imagined by its creator and the life it has in reality, and they are not always the same.”

“The word is much more precise than architecture”.

RICARDO BOFILL

“Architecture is the memory of history and the clothing of humanity.”

“Like any other language, architecture must constantly enrich its vocabulary, create new forms and allow the grammar to evolve.”

RICARDO LEGORRETA

“Look for architecture that makes people happy and not just enjoyed by architects.”

“The city is like the human being, it has to learn to age.”

“The beauty of an architect is to know how to dream.”

“Architecture is like a woman: if you discover it all at once, it's very sad”.

RICHARD MEIER

“Every important work of architecture will always create controversy.”

“I think white is the most wonderful color of all, because in it you can find all the colors of the rainbow.”

“In architecture as in any other creative expression, light has always been a source of ecstasy and inspiration.”

ROGELIO SALMONA

“Making architecture in Latin America today is a political act, as well as being aesthetic and cultural.”

“Good architecture transforms without modifying”.

“Each material imposes laws on design that are inexorable to it”.

“Exceptional public spaces do not exist alone; they have emerged with and from architecture”.

SHIGERU BAN

“As long as it is only intended to make money, architecture will be temporary.”

“I believe that to build a solid building you don't need to use a strong material. The solidity of a building has nothing to do with the strength of the material.”

SIMON VELEZ

“Fortunately, architecture is not like sports, in which one becomes obsolete very quickly; architecture is an old man's profession.

“My proposal as an architect is a more vegetarian architecture, more balanced between vegetables and minerals”.

“Poor people hate bamboo because of their preconceptions and experiences, for me I like it because it is a vegetable steel”.

“Temples are the only architecture that demands spirituality”.

“If you don't protect what you design, in 5 years it will be rotten and you have to design for 500 years from now, so that even in old age the architecture becomes more beautiful".

STEVE JOBS

“Your time is limited, don't waste it living the lives of others.”

“Design is not just what it looks and feels like. Design is how it works.”

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

“My job is not to make people like me. My job is to make them better.”

TADAO ANDO

“It's important for architecture to be a space where you feel spiritually empowered.”

“You really have to take dreams very seriously.”

“Architecture is only considered complete with the intervention of the human being who experiences it.”

TATIANA BILBAO

“It is not always necessary to innovate; it is enough to make a responsible architecture that serves people to live better”.

“The main challenge in architecture is to go back to responding to people, to human beings, to activities, and stop once and for all, responding to capital.”

“Creative does not mean being an artist and painting pictures, it means being innovative, seeing things from another angle in order to transform.”

“Creativity does not sell, it sells itself.”

“Architecture is a shared work because there have to be many minds to respond to this complex world.”

“It is a great challenge to be a mom and a professional, both require a lot of time, it is about making concessions in both... and we are doing very well”.

TEODORO GONZALEZ DE LEÓN

“When architecture excites, it becomes a work of art.”

“Architecture is a way of life. It is not something else. It is a way of facing every day.”

“The present is what an architect should be interested in. We make the future by facing the present.”

WALT DISNEY

“To create the fantastic we must first understand the real.”

“Most of my life I have done what I have wanted to do and that has been the key to my happiness.”

WALTER GROPIUS

“Architecture begins where engineering ends.”

“While building is merely a matter of methods and materials, architecture involves the mastery of space.”

“The building of the future will combine architecture, sculpture and painting.”

“The mind is like an umbrella, it works best when it is open.”

ZAHA HADID

“The world is not a right angle.”

“I don't think architecture is only about shelter, it should be able to move you, calm you, make you think.”

“It's very difficult to have ideas; when they come you have to fight for them.”

“As a woman in architecture, you're always an intruder, but that's okay: I like to be on the edge.”