Walter Gropius Quotes

Downtown Toronto is a very good place to talk about the neutrality of modernist architecture. I'm sure this kind of box-building was interesting in the Twenties, Thirties and Forties, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous to build like this in 2013.

The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.

We're never going to have democratic countries or peaceful countries until we have democratic or peaceful families.

There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order.

Zaha Hadid's Maxxi Museum is proof that Rome and contemporary architecture are no longer a paradox. The building is characteristic Hadid - with curving lines and organic shapes - and the permanent collection already boasts works by Francesco Clemente, William Kentridge, and Gerhard Richter.

Spiritual space is lost in gaining convenience. I saw the need to create a mixture of Japanese spiritual culture and modern western architecture.

The pluralism of India has been the shaping force of our democracy.

In every democracy, it is the people's will that is supreme. We should translate the intense yearning of the people of India and Pakistan for friendship into meaningful measures of cooperation in every walk of life.

Tolerance is important, especially in a democracy. The ability to have honest conversations, even if you come from a different place, a difference perspective, is fundamentally important.

You have to ask the people about democracy. I know what my people want, and I cannot understand these people who violate peace.

Chaoyang Park Plaza is about how to carry the traditional culture into a new format in modern architecture. Instead of building a boundary between the city and the park, I tried to design this building to emerge from the natural landscape.

If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

'Peace on earth, good will toward men' - democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and moral purpose.

I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity.

My interest has always been in an architecture which reflects the modernity of our epoch as opposed to the rethinking of historical references. My work deals with what is happening now—our techniques and materials, what we are capable of doing today.

So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal.

Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism. An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good. The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't

It's going to sound strange probably. But I really like Frank Gehry's works.

I do think that our democracy is so great, we can withstand even a candidacy of Donald Trump. And when we emerge from this, it has to be respecting the position of those who supported him, addressing the anger and anxiety that they have, and, again, bringing the country together, which was always the purpose of our founders, a more perfect union.

As long as there is democracy, there will be people wanting to play jazz because nothing else will ever so perfectly capture the democratic process in sound. Jazz means working things out musically with other people. You have to listen to other musicians and play with them even if you don't agree with what they're playing. It teaches you the very opposite of racism and anti-Semitism. It teaches you that the world is big enough to accommodate us all.

Anybody I talk to agrees that maybe 2 percent of the building environment since the war, we could call architecture.

I wanted to disconnect from contemporary architecture

I believe that without looking at each other as rivals or as competitors, in a democratic India, operating in the framework of an open economy, an open society has, I think, some significance for developing countries, not only in Asia but outside Asia.

Civility isn't just some optional value in a multicultural, multistate democratic republic. Civility is the key to civilization.

Democracy cannot function just on who do we fear the most, you know, or who do we hate the most; we need an affirmative agenda.