Helmut Jahn Quotes

I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.

A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.

I am going to design... a Station after my own fancy; that is, with engineering roofs, etc.

When I design a car, I want people to look at it and go, 'Wow, that's kind of interesting,' and do a second take.

It was very unusual to employ prettiness as part of a building.

The building's identity resided in the ornament.

I think that the point of being an architect is to help raise the experience of everyday living, even a little. Putting a window where people would really like one. Making sure a shaving mirror in a hotel bathroom is at the right angle. Making bureaucratic buildings that are somehow cheerful.

I am finally getting the chance to build large structures and break preconceptions that my designs are just sculptures for people to be in. But my work always comes down to the human scale.

When you design a building, you start from a general philosophy, and you come down, and you start from detail and come up. Only the theoretical architect believes that you can make the concept and then sometime, somebody will come to build it.

Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

The level of detail and craft is something that's inscribed within the original design concept. And so when I begin to draw, I know what kind of detailing I want the building to have.

I live in a loft in a building I designed, but for my dream house I'd get Frank Gehry, just to see what he'd do.

It's far better to shoot a good picture than a good-looking picture.

A real building is one on which the eye can light and stay lit.

Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something. There is a certain concern for history, but it's not very deep.

For me, how an appliance looks is as important as how efficiently it works.

In the work I do, historical elements tend to merge with contemporary forms, such as photo printing on furniture or bold sari prints, to create something unique and memorable.

We need architects to be visionaries.

Describing something as the 'Woodstock of...' has taken to mean a one-of-a-kind historic gathering.

My work is about making candy for the eyes. It's about grabbing your attention. Even though my work is appearing in magazines I am trying to make a large picture. I want my photographs to read like a poster.

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

The history of architecture is the history of the struggle for light.

There is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful.

A lot of people love Tarantino’s films because they’re spectacular, they’re beautiful, they’re wonderful. He hires the best group of artists - not only actors, but everyone around: best photographers, best set designers, best production designers, costume designers. A lot of people love his films because they’re bloody, they’re gory, they’re savage. But very few people see that he’s a very political director.

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.