Alain de Botton Quotes

Museums are custodians of epiphanies, and these epiphanies enter the central nervous system and deep recesses of the mind.

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.

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

Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.

That Moorish architecture is all over the place, of course. It affects me everywhere I see it, as it does so many people. But Brand Library was a special place to me, and I know I've paid homage to it many times in my drawings.

To me, the building [of Museum of Arts and Design]now looks like a lovely jewel box, and the tiled façade reminds me of a heat shield.

Cathedrals are built with pennies of the faithful. A great opera house also is a spiritual center, a temple of sorts, where many gather together for recreation, education, and inspiration - a blessed trinity worthy of public support.

I think people care. If not, why do so many people spend money going on vacations to see architecture? They go to the Parthenon, to Chartres, to the Sydney Opera House. They go to Bilbao... Something compels them, and yet we live surrounded by everything but great architecture.

When a finished work of 20th century sculpture is placed in an 18th century garden, it is absorbed by the ideal representation of the past, thus reinforcing political and social values that are no longer with us.

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.

Well, I think, you know, the arts are really what - one of the things that make this country strong. We always think it's our economy or our military power, but in fact, I think it's our culture, our civilization, our ideas, our creativity.

I do not think that a museum needs to engage with pop culture in order to make itself interesting to museumgoers. Museums are already interesting and engaging with pop culture for its own sake is just a quick way to seem and become dated.

For decades engineers have stood accused that their buildings do not have any cultural value. We have attempted to liberate engineering of this accusation.

I am but an architectural composer.

Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.

The centuries-old history and culture of India, majestic architectural monuments and museums of Delhi, Agra and Mumbai have a unique attractive force.

I like the thought that what we are to do on this earth is embellish it for its greater beauty, so that oncoming generations can look back to the shapes we leave here and get the same thrill that I get in looking back at theirs - at the Parthenon, at Chartres Cathedral.

The museums and parks are graveyards above the ground- congealed memories of the past that act as a pretext for reality.

To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history but to articulate it.

Museums are interesting. This place where we're almost buying admission to take a break from our lives.

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.

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

Recycling old buildings to show art is very important.

I love the South Bank: every era of architecture is there, and you can stop, look, and listen.

In China, we had some buildings that looked like the White House or wine bottles. All they seemed to represent was bad taste.