Andre Breton Quotes

Because it is a national landmark, there is only one way to judge the Kennedy Center - against the established standard of progressive and innovative excellence in architectural design that this country is known and admired for internationally. Unfortunately, the Kennedy Center not only does not achieve this standard of innovative excellence; it also did not seek it. The architect opted for something ambiguously called 'timelessness' and produced meaninglessness. It is to the Washington manner born. Too bad, since there is so much of it.

The modern architect is, generally speaking, art's greatest enemy.

The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics but that no architect worth their names wants to build a shoebox.

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.

I don't believe that classical architecture is enough to engage people anymore. They say: 'So what else is new?'

Our utilitarian structures will mature into architecture only when, through their fulfillment of function, they become carriers of the will of the age.

My first buildings, when I was about 30, were rejected for aesthetic reasons.

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.

Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something. There is a certain concern for history, but it's not very deep.

Modern architecture needed to be part of an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, process.

One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.

When an architect is asked what his best building is, he usually answers, "The next one."

It is the rare architect who does not hope in his heart to design a great building and for whom the quest is not a quiet, consuming passion.

Architecture trumps licensing any time.

Many years ago, we were only able to build boxes. Today, architects from all over the world are working with us - Zaha Hadid from London, Gerkan, Marg and Partner from Hamburg, Kengo Kuma from Japan. We brought design and digitalization from abroad to China.

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.

I think Miss Monroe as architecture is extremely good architecture, and she's a very natural actress, and a very good one.

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.

Frank Gehry designs buildings that make other architects half his age (he's 78) gasp with envy. Neotony is what makes him lace up his skates and whirl around the ice rink, while visionary buildings come to life and dance in his head.

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.

Today, architecture is invention. It isn't enough to just be rational - It must also be beautiful.

Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for.

In architecture it isn't enough to just have the right building that works well. It can also be beautiful. It can also be different. It can create surprise. And surprise is the main thing in a work of art. [] I like and respect Brasí­lia very much. It is a simple city, a rational one. I always defend the urban design of Brasí­lia