Historical Buildings Quotes

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.

Spain is so different from the United States. It seemed to have a history, and the buildings are years and years and years old. Here in the United States an old building is about 17 (years old), and over there it's from 500 B.C., it's incredible.

Liberals want to amend our country's history to eradicate the role of Christianity in America and chisel references to God or faith from our historical buildings.

I can't get enough of London! I love all the picnic benches, the old-school phone booths and parks in the middle of the city.

It is disgraceful when the passers-by exclaim, "O ancient house! alas, how unlike is thy present master to thy former one.

In the '60s when I was a student, there was this campaign to destroy 75 percent of the old buildings in Paris, replacing them with modern architecture. I realized this as a dangerous utopia. This modern vision did not understand the richness of the city. Thankfully, such destruction did not happen.

I came to London constantly, working with Ninja Theory on 'DmC Devil May Cry,' and I kind of fell in love with this amazing architecture, where you have these buildings that have clearly been around a long time, and they have this amazing gothic look, and then on the first floor, it's a McDonald's!

I cannot look at modern buildings without thinking of historical ones.

François Mitterrand was a student of architecture, he had done a lot of research before he called me. He said, "You did something special at the National Gallery of Art in Washington - you brought the new and the old together." But John Russell Pope finished the West Building in 1941, so when the East Building opened it was only about 40 years old. But the Louvre is 800 years old! A much bigger design challenge.

The church of St. Peter at Berlin, notwithstanding the total difference between them in the style of building, appears in some respects to have a great resemblance to St. Paul's in London.

There are two types of people, you see. One type keep their heads straight, and look around as they walk. The others look up - at the tops of houses, at the eaves and the lintels and the roofs, which can tell you when they were built - and I've always done that.

The views from Waterloo Bridge are amazing - you can see so much of London.

I don't often go to a place just to check out all the cultural sites of a city.

The architect Borromini's Quattro Fontane, a little church in Rome, is one of the most beautiful rooms in history.

The part of Limerick we lived in is Georgian, you know, those Georgian houses. You see them in pictures of Dublin.

I love Chicago. It's one of the great cities. I'm crazy about the town. It reminds me of New York when it was at its best, the New York that used to be and is no more. I love the architecture, the old stuff and the new stuff.

When I went to school at Emerson, I was completely charmed living there and loved the architecture of the Back Bay.

I take a keen interest in the architecture of places when I travel.

I love walking along Leith's waterfront and wandering around some of New Town's beautiful streets and squares, with their gorgeous Georgian architecture.

The Victorian house and lots of other buildings weren't oppressive in themselves. They were often very airy and gingerbready and fancy. But they were associated with all this [Victorian] stuffiness.

It is a strange world, Oxford - quite claustrophobic. I was often glad I was only there for eight weeks at a time.

What did I think of Princeton? Well, the answer to that question requires a story. When I first arrived, I looked around me at the Gothic buildings - younger, I later learned, than many of the mosques of this city, but made through acid treatment and ingenious stone-masonry to look older.

Italy is full of historical buildings. And Europe holds a great history of philosophy from Greece until today. I read all those books and see these buildings, and I think of where I stand when I design my architecture.

One my favorite things is to go to the provinces of Russia and see the 18th century wood churches with the onion dome architecture. These humble wonders of incredible imagination of architects that were obviously not living in places like Paris or London, but they've created these amazing churches.

We forget the importance of engineering, but it's been used to design everything from St. Paul's Cathedral to The Shard.