J. Carter Brown Quotes

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

I've always thought Blues Point Tower is one of my best buildings and I stand by that.

To make architecture with any real value is a massive challenge.

When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history and its sensuous qualities.

Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it.

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.

There are a lot of questions about whether architecture is art. The people who ask that think pretty tract houses are architecture. But that doesn't hold up.

Buildings designed with careful attention to aesthetics arouse and enlighten their occupants and that promotes their good health.

Since Stonehenge, architects have always been at the cutting edge of technology. And you can't separate technology from the humanistic and spiritual content of a building.

Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.

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

Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

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.

The general public, formerly profoundly indifferent to everything to do with building, has been shaken out of its torpor; personal interest in architecture as something that concerns every one of us in our daily lives has been very widely aroused; and the broad line of its future development are already clearly discernible.

I like Mysuru Palace, which is always a great place to visit.

We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).

Architecture theory is very interesting.

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.

in architecture, mediocrity is more glaringly obvious than in other lines - because there's a huge, physical object such as a building to demonstrate it.

Why do people have to build such depressing places? I'm not saying that every nook and cranny of the world has to be beautiful, but does it have to be this ugly?

Let's put it this way: One can be happy or unhappy in a building. But some buildings make us more depressed than others.

Architecture falls between art and airports. It's pragmatic-it helps you get from point A to point B. But it also works as art. It makes you think twice. It inspires you. It brings you back to yourself.

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.