Cameron Sinclair Quotes

Good buildings make and are made by their settings, and they are appropriately different in different locations. Climate, culture, topography and materials have helped create regional architectural languages that seem curiously right for their locations and for all times.

Some of the best work that's happening right now is from architects who have remained in their home countries and who have focused on a local or national identity and the idea of critical regionalism.

We have to base architecture on the environment.

Architecture is not merely national but clearly has local ties in that it is rooted in the earth.

I think it's important to approach a house in a way that's reflective of the original environment. Maybe I'm a sentimentalist, but I think that certain geographies call out for certain architecture. I like residences that reflect their place.

My architecture is very much place-related.

One of the stated goals of the postmodern movement in architecture was a greater sensitivity to the people who live in or use newly designed buildings.

I think the chance of finding beauty is higher if you don't work on it directly. Beauty in architecture is driven by practicality. This is what you learn from studying the old townscapes of the Swiss farmers.

I work a little bit like a sculptor. When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material.

Architects in the past have tended to concentrate their attention on the building as a static object. I believe dynamics are more important: the dynamics of people, their interaction with spaces and environmental condition.

A building that has great environmental responsibility is a political animal in a way because it becomes promotional of a cause. I think that kind of advocacy through architecture is really good.

It's my goal to make a building as immaterial as possible. Architecture is a very material thing. It takes a lot of resources, so why not eliminate what you don't need as long as you're able to achieve the same result?

Organic architecture seeks superior sense of use and a finer sense of comfort, expressed in organic simplicity.

Good architecture should be a projection of life itself, and that implies an intimate knowledge of biological, social, technical, and artistic problems.

Since the Beijing Olympics in 2008, our office has been discussing how we can make architecture more human and at one with nature. We need to ask ourselves, what legacy do we want to leave behind on humankind's urban culture?

In the United States alone, 450 billion square feet of glass facade is produced every year. What if we could take this chance to use the glass to harness solar energy and allow the architecture to respond to the light and heat of the sun, to create photosynthesis and generate solar energy?

I don't know what happened to architecture [in Las-Vegas] I think they're getting us ready for space colonies or something, nobody puts a window in that you can crack.

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture seeks to make a better place in physical terms. This means trying to bring values into environments, buildings, and contexts that improve the quality of life for future generations.

I've always been interested in combining architecture with a social agenda, and I really think you can invest and be inventive with hospitals and housing.

The only way you can be universal is to be sure you are very specifically local.

I don’t know, I don’t feel right unless I’ve got the sea and mountains nearby. People are mostly a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel’s always linked to the lay of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.

It is hard not to be inspired when you're living in New York. It doesn't matter what you do. I think that there is so much going on in this city. I like walking around or taking the subway, thinking about all the history here, looking at the architecture and all the people; of course, the museums. It's tough to find a better place to live.

Architecture is not just for the moment, it is not just for the next fashion magazine.

I'm really nostalgic for Malibu area because I've spent so much time there. People don't think of California as having a history.

Also marvelous in a room is the light that comes through the windows of a room and that belongs to the room. The sun does not realize how beautiful it is until after a room is made. A man’s creation, the making of a room, is nothing short of a miracle. Just think, that a man can claim a slice of the sun.