Architectural Challenge Quotes

Money shows [man] new ways to cheat life. Power becomes exterior instead of interior. In these circumstances architecture becomes too difficult, building too easy.

When I got the opportunity to do the new wing [the Schauhaus] for the German Historical Museum, for instance, I didn't see it as an opportunity for my own ego, to do something so exciting that every architectural publication would want to put it on the cover. I accepted it because I knew it was going to be a very difficult project, and I wasn't sure I could do something exciting there.

The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics but that no architect worth their names wants to build a shoebox.

One of the dilemmas of architecture in general is that there is a Catch-22 - you can't actually get to be commissioned to do certain types of building until you've already built that type of building. So it seems to be incredibly hard to get going.

What if we treat the high-rise like a mountain, or we have gardens in the sky, or waterfalls? I think that's the most challenging thing I want to try in my architecture.

There can be little question that the tall building presents one of the most difficult challenges to the architect.

The problem of the tall office building is one of the most stupendous, one of the most magnificent opportunities that the Lord of Nature in His beneficence has ever offered to the proud spirit of man.

All these buildings are like mountains I would like to climb, but I am forbidden.

The challenge of a cathedral is very good for architectural inventiveness.

Performing arts buildings are complex. The acoustics, the sight lines and all that have to just be perfect. So you begin with just making these things sublime as musical instruments. And if you fail there, you have failed it all.

I think architects tend to believe that they can almost do anything, which is a wonderful characteristic, but in some cases you just fall flat.

I think all good architecture should challenge you, make you start asking questions. You don't have to understand it. You may not like it. That's OK.