Before 2000, everything was about being contextual, and buildings were supposed to be good citizens.
I don't think architecture is radical. How can something that takes years and costs millions be radical?
The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built.
Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders' spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground.
The self-commissioned architect is the obviously exclusive potential - for as at present used, or designed, the world's resources are serving only forty-four per cent of humanity.
But look what we have built low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.
Based on German prototypes, green walls and roofs are a natural idea in Singapore's tropical environment, where mosses, ferns, philodendrons, orchids and other epiphytes literally grow on trees.
The tragic side of many architectural enterprises is that they destroy natural beauties which are a priceless possession and cannot be replaced.
In the United States alone, 450 billion square feet of glass facade is produced every year. What if we could take this chance to use the glass to harness solar energy and allow the architecture to respond to the light and heat of the sun, to create photosynthesis and generate solar energy?
I love architecture.
We are the only country in the world that trashes its old buildings. Too late we realize how very much we need them.
I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be within and without: . . . with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history.
We need houses as we need clothes, architecture stimulates fashion. It’s like hunger and thirst — you need them both.
I'm very optimistic about the future. I'm just not optimistic about the skyscraper as a building typology that is suited for the future.
I’m a passionate architect... I do not work for money
Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built in the last 50 years, and most of it is depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy, and spiritually degrading.
I see my buildings as pieces of cities, and in my designs I try to make them into responsible and contributing citizens.
I work a little bit like a sculptor. When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material.
There must be a way to combine the high rise and high-density environment with nature. Maybe we can have our gardens in the sky.
Designs are increasingly winning competitions because they are literally green, and because somewhere they feature a small windmill.
A truly great structure, one that is meant to stand the tests of time, never disregards its environment. A serious architect takes that into account. He knows that if he wants presence, he must consult with nature.
Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction.
I don't know what happened to architecture [in Las-Vegas] I think they're getting us ready for space colonies or something, nobody puts a window in that you can crack.
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture seeks to make a better place in physical terms. This means trying to bring values into environments, buildings, and contexts that improve the quality of life for future generations.
Buildings should serve people, not the other way around.
