Edwin Lutyens Quotes

I would have loved to be the designer of the Capitol of the United States. I would love to do some important major public building.

Historically, in the world of architecture, enormous amounts of care and energy have been lavished on things that are almost a cliched idea of culture.

The Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio comes from afar. Our land has a millennial history of emigrations: master masons, architects, builders, decorators, plasterers, artists from the world of building.

Zaha Hadid's Maxxi Museum is proof that Rome and contemporary architecture are no longer a paradox. The building is characteristic Hadid - with curving lines and organic shapes - and the permanent collection already boasts works by Francesco Clemente, William Kentridge, and Gerhard Richter.

I was writing a chapter of Beautiful Evidence on the subject of the sculptural pedestal, which led to my thinking about what's up on the pedestal - the great leader.

'Clothespin' was the first city monument on a large scale that could compete with the architecture around it.

Architecture aims at Eternity.

The Pyramids are perfect, but you can't put the Pyramids in the middle of Manhattan. In the desert, the combination of light and form makes it perfect.

In northern architecture - the cathedrals of Europe and all the little churches - the details, the carving of stone, become necessary because the light is not there to help you very much. You have to enrich surfaces. The desert reduces form to its simplest nature. There is no need for gargoyles or flying buttresses in the desert.

A monument's dimensions should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated.

The notion that the great artist requires a great patron has been around since the Pharaohs. That the born patron also needs an artist to patronize is a less-studied phenomenon.

In medieval times, artists had patrons that supported them and this is a similar thing, ... We're basically saying, 'Wouldn't you like to be a part of this'

Architecture was pretty much the sexiest thing to be doing from 1700-1800.

The artistic part of us all - I think that the easiest way to appreciate this - is through architecture. Architecture is very impressive; the beauty of buildings, temples.

Often the art in New York is related to the buildings, to grandiose things.

I don't think all buildings have to be iconic, but the history of the world has shown us that cultures build iconic buildings for their major public buildings.

Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.

Most buildings, whether they're Gothic cathedrals or Romanesque ones, were high tech for their time.

Art is very tricky because it's what you do for yourself. It's much harder for me to make those works than the monuments or the architecture.

In earlier times there was one king and thousands of artists painting his palace. Now you’ve got thousands of artists painting for millions of people.

What makes Burning Man special is the location: a 9-mile circle of gypsum, an ancient dried ocean bed. The ground is like a flat crust with no plants or insects, a perfect outdoor gallery for monumental interactive sculpture and architecture.

If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay - in solid cash - the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.

Driving a steamroller over an old trumpet or a teaspoon is no more destructive than taking a chisel to a lump of marble already torn from the landscape. But people don't see it that way because marble is considered noble.

Art does, to some extent, follow economics.

Great architecture of the past was always clear. SFMOMA is still a simple building to understand.