Walter Gropius Quotes

An important work of architecture will create polemics.

That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man's spiritual vision.

You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.

Is the Mona Lisa an 'accurate' representation of the actual human model for the painting? Who knows? Who cares? It's a great piece of art. It moves us. It makes us wonder, makes us gape - finally makes us look inward at ourselves.

No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.

In any architecture, there is an equity between the pragmatic function and the symbolic function.

To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit: it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry.

There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart. There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart.

I do believe architecture, and all art, should be content-driven. It should have something to say beyond the sensational.

I have never collected an object or figure from Africa or Oceania because of anything curious about it or because of its utility or historic interest. Everything has been chosen entirely because of its aesthetic significance; its form, feeling, structure, and plastic values.

There is a profound ethic to architecture which is different from the other arts.

Design can have such a positive impact on the way people live and on their relationships and moods.

I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums, concert halls and civic buildings.

'6 Times' is an attempt to reinvestigate the social responsibility of sculpture. The body in question is a particular body, but it doesn't really matter whose it is.

I believe art has to take responsibility but it should not give up being art.

My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we - architects - can effect the quality of life of the people.

Design certainly has a cosmetic, aesthetic aim. It always aims at making things beautiful. But relevance is just as important. I often say, 'If it isn't ethical, it can't be beautiful. But if it isn't beautiful, it probably shouldn't be at all.'

My designs are meant to attract the hand as well as the eye.

Never has there been a close study of how necessary to a man are the experiences which we clumsily call aesthetic

There's a power in what we hold as artists, and part of that comes with responsibility... to share the human experience and really allow that to be seen.

If we talk about art in general... all the works of art, each one of them could reflect a moment in the history of mankind, the time in which it was created.

Art matters not merely because it is the most magnificent ornament and the most nearly unfailing occupation of our lives, but because it is life itself.

We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth.

Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.

Whether our work is art or science or the daily work of society, it is only the form in which we explore our experience which is different.