Public Buildings Quotes

Architecture is a political art connecting our values to the ages.

We shape a building and thereafter the building shapes us.

The White House is much bigger than it looks. There are really six floors with two small mezzanine levels: two belowground floors; the ground floor, where the main kitchen is located; the State Floor (or the first floor); two mezzanine levels with the chief usher’s office and the pastry kitchen; the second floor (family living quarters); and the third floor (also family living quarters).

The lower classes ... carry off whatever they can lay their hands on. [The President refused.]

In the event of fire in any of the public buildings troops would be of vast service in the protection of public property, and should insurrection break out the protection of life and property would be more safe guarded by our company of regulars, than by the whole City.

No matter what an architect may be at home, he becomes a monumentalist when he comes to Washington.

A healthy national infrastructure requires not just competent engineers but also a government—and a public—willing to pay for it.

I am a believer, but I affirm that in public buildings the law of the Republic overrides religious rules.

Let nothing lie useless which may rebound to the beauty of the City. Let your illustrious Magnificence therefore cause the blocks of marble which are everywhere lying about in ruins to be wrought up into the walls by the hands of the workmen whom I send herewith. Only take care to use only those stones which have really fallen from pubic buildings, as we do not wish to appropriate private property, even for the glorification of the City

There were no less than twenty thousand shops in Cairo, all of which belong to the sultan (al-Mustansir). Many shops are rented for as much as ten dinars a month, and none for less than two. There is no end of caravanserais, bathhouses and other public buildings - all property of the sultan, for no one owns any property except houses and what he himself builds….In the midst of the houses in the city are gardens and orchards watered by wells. In the sultan's harem are the most beautiful gardens imaginable. Water-wheels have been constructed to irrigate these gardens. There are trees planted and pleasure parks built even on the roofs …. All the houses of Cairo are built separate one from another, so that no one's trees or outbuildings are against anyone else's walls. Cairo has four cathedral mosques where men pray on Fridays.

The lanes and streets of the city being set out, the choice of sites for the convenience and use of the state remains to be decided on; for sacred edifices, for the forum, and for other public buildings.

During the modern period, the vanguard architect has usually relied on small residential jobs both to supply a steady income and to serve as 'sketches' for ideas that are often later translated to the larger scale of public commissions.

It is important that we do not appear to be a fearful people. We must not let these attacks change our values. The terrorists must not be allowed to change our architecture.

If you want to see what a society really believes in, look at what the biggest buildings on the horizon are dedicated to.

Of course I believe imaginative architecture can make a difference to people's lives, but I wish it was possible to divert some of the effort we put into ambitious museums and galleries into the basic architectural building blocks of society.

Basilicas should be constructed on a site adjoining the forum and in the warmest possible quarter, so that in winter business men may gather in them without being troubled by the weather.

Architecture has its political Use; publick Buildings being the Ornament of a Country; it establishes a Nation, draws People and Commerce; makes the People love their native Country, which Passion is the Original of all great Actions in a Common-wealth.... Architecture aims at Eternity.

In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.

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.

Destroy and damage infrastructure, public buildings and government buildings. Do not leave them any place from which they can operate to damage Israel. We must be sure that Hamas will be spending many years in rebuilding Gaza and not in attacking Israel.

The Texas Energy Office's Loan Star Program has reduced building energy consumption and taxpayers' energy costs through the efficient operation of public buildings, saving taxpayers more than $172 million through energy efficiency projects.

I don’t care how many laws you have to break. I want the Guggenheim [Museum] built.

There are so many constraints on the architect that public buildings almost never feel free or enjoyable.

Visitors who come from the Soviet Union and tell you how marvelous it is to be able to look at public buildings without advertisements stuck all over them are just telling you that they can't decipher the cyrillic alphabet.

In cities like Athens, poor houses lined narrow and tortuous streets in spite of luxurious public buildings.