David Byrne Quotes

I could have been an architect, but I don't think I'd have been very happy. Nearly all modern architecture is a silly game as far as I can see.

My father, Robert Ernst, was teaching as an architect at the technical high school of our city.

To make architecture with any real value is a massive challenge.

I'm very interested in architecture.

I love architecture.

You can never draw enough or read enough - reading about architecture, in other words.

I'm really into architecture, I'm a member of the Brutalist Appreciation Society; I'm a member of the Postmodern Society. I write letters to save buildings.

The practice of architecture is the most delightful of all pursuits. Also, next to agriculture, it is the most necessary to man. One must eat, one must have shelter. Next to religious worship itself, it is the spiritual handmaiden of our deepest convictions.

To sum up the state of architecture in America: ninety percent of the buildings we live in and around aren't architecture. No, that's not right - 98 percent.

I am obsessed with architecture. It is true, I am restless, trying to find myself as an architect, and how best to contribute in this world filled with contradiction, disparity, and inequality, even passion and opportunity.

A turning point in the public's perception of the building art came with the publication of Frank Lloyd Wright's 'An Autobiography' of 1932, a picaresque narrative that captivated many who hadn't the slightest inkling of what architects actually did.

I could be happy doing something like architecture. It would involve another couple of years of graduate school, but that's what I studied in college. That's what I always wanted to do.

I have designed the most buildings of any living American architect.

Building design isn't trendy.

Of course I know very little about architecture, and the older I get the less I know.

There are a lot of questions about whether architecture is art. The people who ask that think pretty tract houses are architecture. But that doesn't hold up.

I don't think architecture is radical. How can something that takes years and costs millions be radical?

From when I was about seven, I thought I wanted to be an architect. I've always loved spaces and dwellings in general.

I am immersed in architecture all day, working in my office or teaching.

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

Architecture students are generally given theoretical projects, often located at distant locations, and told to come up with a design.

I don't see that any buildings should be excluded from the term architecture, as long as they are done properly.

I would have loved to have been an architect - which, actually, would have been a disaster.

I'm working on a school of architecture in China. It's rare that an architect gets to design a school of architecture, and here I get to do it. I'm so pleased that they asked me.