Harry Seidler Quotes

The Washingtonian said it shouldn't be built. The gallery's East Building is now considered a triumph, and members of the American Association of Architects have voted it one of the best buildings of all time.

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

The work that launched Snohetta into the architectural big leagues was their Oslo Opera House, which will certainly rank among the firm's highlights whatever else they may do. Although this is by any measure a triumph of city planning, the building itself is not quite a masterpiece, though very fine indeed.

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.

Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.

A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel.

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.

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

...Skyscraper National Park

The Capitol is the best work I have ever done, or shall ever do, and I am glad to have Given it to St. Paul.

The skyscraper and the twentieth century are synonymous; the tall building is the landmark of our age. ... Shaper of cities and fortunes, it is the dream, past and present, acknowledged or unacknowledged, of almost every architect.

In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.

The architect is not only the director, but he is the composer. And, as a composer, the architect brings a sense of creativity to each building.

I think the biggest problem with 'industrial' architecture is that it's lost its sense of humanity. Minimalist stuff drains all the humanity out of it. That idea works great for the money thing, but it doesn't work great for the feeling thing.

The responsibility of an architect is to create a sense of order, a sense of place, a sense of relationship.

The Fujiyama of Architecture?at once a lofty mountain and a national shrine.

François Mitterrand was a student of architecture, he had done a lot of research before he called me. He said, "You did something special at the National Gallery of Art in Washington - you brought the new and the old together." But John Russell Pope finished the West Building in 1941, so when the East Building opened it was only about 40 years old. But the Louvre is 800 years old! A much bigger design challenge.

I always look for nature or natural lighting within buildings and within rooms that has been done by somebody else to suit their needs. I look at it very closely as a photographic thing, then enhance it.

The relative majesty of buildings depends more on the weight and vigour of their masses than any other tribute of their design.

In all matters but particularly in architecture, that which is signified is the subject of which we may be speaking and that which gives significance is a demonstration on scientific principles. One who professes himself an architect should be well versed in both directions.

Frank Gehry for instance likes to imagine his buildings as sculptures. I like to imagine my sculptures as architectural.

Buildings have been made because of man.

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.

Clearly, if a building is not functionally and technically in order, then it isn't architecture either, it's just a building.

I have high aspirations. I want to be an architect.