Ma Yansong Quotes

I would not be at all surprised to find out... that the dimensions of buildings affect us in ways we don't guess.

The structure of life I have described in buildings - the structure which I believe to be objective - is deeply and inextricably connected with the human person, and with the innermost nature of human feeling.

You have to see a building to comprehend it. Photographs cannot convey the experience, nor film.

Architecture is the story of how we see ourselves. It is the architect's job to service everyday life.

You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.

When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.

Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.

All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.

Somehow, architecture alters the way we think about the world and the way we behave. Any serious architecture, as a litmus test, has to be that.

I don't know why I've always been so captivated by architecture.

Architecture is a ride - a physical ride and an intellectual ride.

Architecture is how the person places herself in the space. Fashion is about how you place the object on the person.

When you come into my pieces, it's not an intellectual experience, it's a physical experience. It's coming at your body. There's light, there's sound, the lights in some pieces are going on and off. There's loud roaring sound happening.

I don't want people to sit there and objectively watch the film. I want them to experience it as something that's under their skin, so you try to make the films really tactile.

Architecture is a visual art, and the buildings speak for themselves.

When we project the specific organization of the human body into the space outside it, then we have architecture.

I want to explore my design philosophy in different mediums, and I'm very interested in architecture.

There are things you can get in that physical experience you cannot get virtually.

Architecture is a code. It's a pure code, derived from the dimensions of nature.

I'm not an interior decorator; I'm a designer, and that includes the architecture. The package must be strong and controlled, the rooms aligned, and the windows positioned to make sense with the furniture. Fluff it up, and you've got big trouble.

Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.

The sense of space within the reality of any building is a new concept wherever architecture is concerned. But it is essential ancient principle just the same and is not only necessary now but implied by the ideal of democracy itself.

I studied architecture in New York. So, really I was very moved, like everyone else, to try to contribute something that has that resonance and profundity of it means to all of us.

People outside the profession of architecture perhaps often lack the understanding of how their physical environment comes into being. What are the processes, the concerns and considerations? What are the parameters that shape the world around them?

I've always had a great feel for space and how objects occupy it.