Alain de Botton Quotes

I would not be at all surprised to find out... that the dimensions of buildings affect us in ways we don't guess.

You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.

The difference between me and a lot of other people is I can feel the effect of light, space, furniture, height, scale, distance, all these micro-environments affect me in a strong way.

Architecture is about experience: not only visual but also what you can touch, what you can feel.

The sense of space within the reality of any building is a new concept wherever architecture is concerned. But it is essential ancient principle just the same and is not only necessary now but implied by the ideal of democracy itself.

What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.

The structure of life I have described in buildings - the structure which I believe to be objective - is deeply and inextricably connected with the human person, and with the innermost nature of human feeling.

One thing that feeds into the way you experience the social world is your mood - and one thing that affects your mood is the weather.

When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.

Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

Color is a power which directly influences the soul.

Slobodan Milosevic was just as smart as a five-year-old. Five-year-olds have an uncanny way of getting into your psyche, your self-esteem.

I am affected by what is around. I don't think many people would admit that.

She said the object and color in the materials around us actually have a physical effect on us, on how we feel.

My buildings should have an emotional core - a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice feeling.

Those of us raised in modern cities tend to notice horizontal and vertical lines more quickly than lines at other orientations. In contrast, people raised in nomadic tribes do a better job noticing lines skewed at intermediate angles, since Mother Nature tends to work with a wider array of lines than most architects.

Nations, like individuals, are largely the product of their environment; and many of their characteristics, their fears and their neuroses, as well as their abilities, are conditioned by the impressions of what we may call their early childhood.

I've always had a great feel for space and how objects occupy it.

I'm not an interior decorator; I'm a designer, and that includes the architecture. The package must be strong and controlled, the rooms aligned, and the windows positioned to make sense with the furniture. Fluff it up, and you've got big trouble.

I think architecture is one of the predominant orderings of social space. It can construct and contain our experiences. It defines our days and nights. It literally puts us in our place.

The purpose of construction is TO MAKE THINGS HOLD TOGETHER; of architecture TO MOVE US.

It's a very, very rare moment when another actor hurts you. I mean, that's not normal.

Piers is always going on about how he hated Stowe. As if that solves everything, as if to hate something means it can't have affected you.

When I was a child I experienced moments of not wanting to see the ugliness, not wanting to see not being wanted. This lack of love went into my eyes and into my mind.