Cornelia Otis Skinner Quotes

In Paris, there has to be a presence. History becomes the most interesting when it's compared to the present. I mean there's a whole group of people that want to build new buildings that look like old buildings.

It's not about doing over the living room of someone who has bad taste in color. This is about restoring historic buildings and instilling pride in a community, which can be done through designing new public spaces and social gathering spots.

Ancient monuments 300 to 1000-plus years old are never 'renovated,' only 'restored,' a distinction that escapes the babus.

But I did get to see the Notre-Dame cathedral, which was really special to me. I'm completely heartbroken over the fire, but I'm really glad that they're gonna be able to salvage it.

Personally, what I would like the most is to work on a project that would aid the historic rehabilitation of Havana. It's a shame - and it gives me tremendous sadness - to see the precious buildings, to see a city, which could be the most beautiful in Latin America, falling apart and with very little money for renovations.

How to save the old that's worth saving, whether in landscape, houses, manners, institutions, or human types, is one of our greatest problems, and the one that we bother least about.

When you strip away the rhetoric, preservation is simply having the good sense to hold on to things that are well designed, that link us with our past in a meaningful way, and that have plenty of good use left in them.

We are the only country in the world that trashes its old buildings. Too late we realize how very much we need them.

I believe that the FCC and Tribal Nations share the same goal-ensuring high-speed Internet access to anyone who wants it, while respecting and preserving sites with historic, religious, and cultural significance to Tribes.

Obama took a tour of the Great Wall of China and said, 'We need one of these things around the White House.'

When I was young, beautiful ancient statues were castrated, so that the eye might not be corrupted.... Nothing was gained, unless horses and asses had also been castrated.

Paris was a museum displaying exactly itself.

You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.

It's no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the YankeeStadium of ancient times.

Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

In the case of European towns, the passing of centuries provides an enhancement; in the case of American towns, the passing of years brings degeneration. It is not simply that they have been newly built; they were built so as to be renewable as quickly as they were put up, that is, badly.

A breath of Paris preserves the soul.

Our language, one of our most precious natural resources, deserves at least as much protection as our woodlands, streams and whooping cranes.

I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love. It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigor of the earlier world?

I spent more than ten years working on the Neues Museum. It was a wonderful experience, an example of real collaboration between architects, conservationists, curators, client, politicians, the media, and the public. Discussions, even when difficult, were always about ideas. Ideas matter to Germans. They're a reflective people. That's attractive.

Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something. There is a certain concern for history but it’s not very deep. I understand that time has changed, we have evolved. But I don’t want to forget the beginning. A lasting architecture has to have roots.

Buffalo is one of America's great designed cities. The interweaving of great architecture, landscape architecture and important historic sites makes Buffalo a must see destination for preservationists, designers, history buffs, and anyone wishing to see an inspiring example of American design.

From that house there has come so much life that it ought never to die or fall into ruin... For me that house was a gateway to America.

A tourist will come drawn to its beautiful past but we need to put efforts for creating systems to make them stay here.