Martin Filler 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.

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 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.

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

I feel most strongly about Jerusalem, because architects ultimately have to address that city.

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

I see my buildings as pieces of cities, and in my designs I try to make them into responsible and contributing citizens.

Cities are about juxtaposition. In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like. In Bordeaux, we built law courts right next door to what is effectively a listed historic building, and that makes it exciting.

In the big picture, architecture is the art and science of making sure that our cities and buildings fit with the way we want to live our lives.

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.

One cannot completely avoid this landmark character with large buildings such as these. But the city itself is also gigantic.

A city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness

That the sight of people attracts still other people, is something that city planners and city architectural designers seem to find incomprehensible. They operate on the premise that city people seek the sight of emptiness, obvious order and quiet. Nothing could be less true. The presences of great numbers of people gathered together in cities should not only be frankly accepted as a physical fact... they should also be enjoyed as an asset and their presence celebrated.

We need find the space to build more affordable homes in the city. That involves a number of different policy responses. For example, I've spoken about the need to rethink the greenbelt - the protected land around the edge of London that was originally intended to be protected and retained as an area of natural beauty but in many cases is neither natural nor beautiful.

The streets of a modern city are depressing. They are so aimless and so weak in their lines and their masses, that the mind and senses jog on their way like passengers in a train with blinds down in an overcrowded carriage.

One important role for the city is to conduct studies to document areas of greatest need, and to facilitate coordination between our public and private transportation options to weave it into a dense tapestry of accessible and reliable transportation.

Parks are but pavement disguised with a growth of grass.

The city of Chandigarh is planned to human scale. It puts us in touch with the infinite cosmos and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities by which the citizens can live a full and harmonious life. Here the radiance of nature and heart are within our reach.

The external appearance of any construction projects that are created during the time of the National Socialist Reich must take on the sensibility of our time. Factories are the workplaces of our National Socialist racial comrades. Streets and highways carry the name of the Führer. Settlements today are not isolated communities, but rather parts of greater city-construction plans. Every work site must be properly located within its neighborhood and surrounding setting (i.e., the natural world).

Whyte's work remains a living and usable handbook for improving our cities, our countryside, and our lives.

As more and more architecture is finally unmasked as the mere organization of flow - shopping centers, airports - it is evident that circulation is what makes or breaks public architecture.

There's something really interesting about current urbanism: the only model is the universal model, and there is increasingly incapacity to consider the virtues and the qualities that are there, and then to build on them. The only thing is complete transformation.

The test of civilization is the power of drawing the most benefit out of cities.

In architecture it isn't enough to just have the right building that works well. It can also be beautiful. It can also be different. It can create surprise. And surprise is the main thing in a work of art. [] I like and respect Brasí­lia very much. It is a simple city, a rational one. I always defend the urban design of Brasí­lia

Cities like Detroit exist because they occupy important sites. In the case of Detroit, it sits on a river between two great lakes - very important and strategic.