Architecture quotes have long served as a wellspring of inspiration and insight, encapsulating the profound wisdom and innovative thinking of the most influential and most famous architects throughout history. This thoughtfully curated collection of architecture quotes offers a glimpse into the creative and philosophical processes that have shaped the built environment. Organized alphabetically, these quotes feature the reflections of architectural icons such as Zaha Hadid, who redefined modern design; Richard Rogers, a leader in high-tech architecture; and Mies van der Rohe, known for his minimalist ‘less is more’ approach. You’ll also find the visionary thoughts of Maya Lin, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and many others whose work continues to influence contemporary architecture. Each quote in this collection not only honors the legacy of these architectural giants but also serves as a source of inspiration for anyone passionate about the art and science of architecture. Let these architecture quotes deepen your understanding and appreciation of the built world.
Adolf Loos
- “Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect’s task, therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.”
- “The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not.”
- “Be truthful. Nature only sides with truth.”
Ai Weiwei
- “To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.”
- “The natural desire to save a cat is what it means to be a citizen.”
- “We had better not enjoy the moment, but create the moment.”
Albert Einstein
- “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Alvar Aalto
- “Form must have a content, and that content must be linked with nature.”
- “Architecture belongs to culture, not to civilization.”
- “I tell you, it is easier to build a grand opera or a city center than to build a personal house.”
- “God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is, at least for me, an abuse of paper.”
- “The ultimate goal of the architect is to create a paradise. Every house, every product of architecture should be a fruit of our endeavor, to build an earthly paradise for people.”
Alvaro Siza
- “The relation of a building to its function needs to be much less schematic and formal if you want to produce good architecture.”
- “A good architect works slowly.”
- “Tradition is a challenge to innovation.”
Ambrose Bierce
- “Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.”
Antonio Gaudi
- “Originality consists in returning to the origin.”
- “There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners.”
- “Nothing is art if it does not come from nature.”
- “Anything created by human beings is already in the great book of nature.”
Aristotle
- “By dint of building well, you get to be a good architect.”
Ayn Rand
- “I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.”
Bjarke Ingels
- “I believe that architecture, as anything else in life, is evolutionary. Ideas evolve; they don’t come from outer space and crash into the drawing board.”
- “The one thing all humans share is that we all inhabit the same limited amount of real estate, which is Planet Earth.”
- “A kid in Minecraft can build a world and inhabit it through play. We have the possibility to build the world that we want to inhabit.”
Brenda Laurel
- “A design isn’t finished until someone is using it.”
Brian Reed
- “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.”
Buckminster Fuller
- “When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I’m finished, if the solution is not beautiful I know it’s wrong.”
- “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
- “Integrity is the essence of everything successful.”
Carrie Phillips
- “I’m convinced that without bad design, the world would be a far less stimulating place; we would have nothing to marvel over and nothing to be nostalgic about.”
César Pelli
- “The desire to reach for the sky runs very deep in the human psyche.”
- “I see my buildings as pieces of cities, and in my designs, I try to make them into responsible and contributing citizens.”
- “I always look forward to the next project. That is one of the wonderful things about architecture – you always can hope for another project to design.”
Charles Eames
- “The details are not the details. They make the design.”
- “Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.”
- “The most important thing is that you love what you are doing, and the second is that you are not afraid of where your next idea will lead.”
- “Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”
Constantin Brancusi
- “Architecture is inhabited sculpture.”
Daniel Libeskind
- “Architecture is the biggest unwritten document of history.”
- “Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It’s based on wonder.”
- “To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history, but to articulate it.”
David Adjaye
- “Buildings are deeply emotive structures which form our psyche.”
- “For me, architecture is a social act.”
- “Context is so important, not to mimic… but to become part of the place.”
David Chipperfield
- “There is a danger when every building has to look spectacular; to look like it is changing the world. I don’t care how a building looks if it means something, not to architects, but to the people who use it.”
- “The difference between good and bad architecture is the time you spend on it.”
- “A building is no good if someone’s got to explain to you why it’s good. You can’t say you don’t know enough about architecture – that’s ridiculous. It’s got to work on many levels.”
- “Britain loves a bargain… but you don’t get good, lasting architecture on the cheap.”
Diébédo Francis Kéré
- “Architecture is about people.”
- “If we learn to build with local materials, we have a future.”
- “If we learn to build with local materials, we have a future. Architecture can bring a lot to a local society like mine. Architecture makes people proud. And that can generate a lot of energy.”
Eero Saarinen
- “The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man’s life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.”
Eileen Gray
- “To create, one must first question everything.”
Frank Chimero
- “People ignore design that ignores people.”
- “Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because the idea wasn’t theirs.”
Frank Gehry
- “Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”
- “I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did, and I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I’m not sure where I’m going.”
- “I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don’t get a lot of work sometimes.”
- “I don’t know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.”
- “You can look anywhere and find inspiration.”
- “98% of what gets built today is shit.”
- “I work from the inside out.”
- “The best advice I’ve received is to be yourself. The best artists do that.”
- “You’ve got to bumble forward into the unknown.”
- “If I knew where I was going, I wouldn’t do it. When I can predict or plan it, I don’t do it.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
- “Form Follows function – that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual.”
- “You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledgehammer on the construction site.”
- “The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”
- “A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”
- “I know the price of success; dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.”
- “Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own Earth. It is at least the geometric pattern of things, of life, of the human and social world. It is at best that magic framework of reality that we sometimes touch upon when we use the word order.”
- “Early in my career…I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypercritical humility… I deliberately choose an honest arrogance, and I’ve never been sorry.”
- “An idea is salvation by imagination.”
- “Buildings, too, are children of the Earth and Sun.”
- “Freedom is from within.”
- “Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.”
- “The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own, we have no soul of our own civilization.”
- “The present is the ever-moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.”
Frank Stella
- “Architecture can’t fully represent the chaos and turmoil that are part of the human personality, but you need to put some of that turmoil into the architecture, or it isn’t real.”
Gilbert K. Chesterton
- “All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
Glenn Murcutt
- “A building should be able to open up and let the environment in.”
- “We do not create the work. I believe we, in fact, are discoverers.”
- “Life is not about maximizing everything, it’s about giving something back – like light, space, form, serenity, joy. You have to give something back.”
- “Layering and changeability: this is the key, the combination that is worked into most of my buildings. Occupying one of these buildings is like sailing a yacht; you modify and manipulate its form and skin according to seasonal conditions and natural elements, and work with these to maximize the performance of the building.”
Harry Seidler
- “Architecture is not an inspirational business, it’s a rational procedure to do sensible and hopefully beautiful things.”
I.M. Pei
- “Architecture is the very mirror of life. You only have to cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past, the spirit of a place; they are the reflection of society.”
Jane Jacobs
- “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
Jean Nouvel
- “Each new situation requires a new architecture.”
- “My buildings are more famous than me.”
Jim Rohn
- “Whatever good things we build end up building us.”
John M. Johnson
- “Very often the opinion of the clients must be disregarded in their own interest.”
John Ruskin
- “When we build, let us think that we build forever.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “Architecture is frozen music.”
Juhani Pallasmaa
- “A profound design process eventually makes the patron, the architect, and every occasional visitor in the building a slightly better human being.”
- “The door handle is the handshake of the building.”
Kunle Adeyemi
- “Ignorance is bliss… with this innocence, you can create and question a lot of things.”
Le Corbusier
- “Architecture is a learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.”
- “I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.”
- “A house is a machine for living in.”
- “The home should be the treasure chest of living.”
- “To create architecture is to put it in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.”
- “Light creates ambiance and feel of a place, as well as the expression of a structure.”
- “Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city.”
- “The history of architecture is the history of the struggle for light.”
- “Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.”
- “To be modern is not a fashion, it is a state. It is necessary to understand history, and he who understands history knows how to find continuity between that which was that which is, and that which will be.”
Leonardo da Vinci
- “Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.”
- “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Louis Kahn
- “A great building must begin with the immeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasured.”
- “The sun does not realize how wonderful it is until after a room is made.”
- “Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.”
- “Even a space intended to be dark should have just enough light from some mysterious opening to tell us how dark it really is. Each space must be defined by its structure and the character of its natural light.”
- “Even a brick wants to be something.”
- “Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.”
- “Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.”
- “Every building must have… its own soul.”
- “A room is not a room without natural light.”
- “I try to create homes, not houses.”
- “I sense light as the giver of all presences, and materials as spent light. What is made by light casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to light.”
Louis Sullivan
- “Form ever follows function.”
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- “We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.”
- “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.”
- “Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.”
- “God is in the details.”
- “Build! Don’t Talk.”
- “Each material has its specific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it. This is no less true of steel and concrete.”
- “I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good.”
- “Less is more.”
- “When one looks at Nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it takes on a deeper significance than when one stands outside. More of Nature is thus expressed – it becomes part of a greater whole.”
- “The architect must get to know the people who will live in the planned house. From their needs, the rest inevitably follows.”
- “Never talk to a client about architecture. Talk to him about his children. That is simply good politics. He will not understand what you have to say about architecture most of the time. “
Luis Barragán
- “Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake.”
- “Architecture is an art when one consciously or unconsciously creates aesthetic emotion in the atmosphere and when this environment produces well-being.”
- “I don’t divide architecture, landscape, and gardening; to me, they are one.”
Mark Wigley
- “Architecture never derived its force from the stability of culture, but rather from the expression of those moments when that sense of stability slipped.”
Mario Botta
- “The first gesture of an architect is to draw a perimeter; in other words, to separate the microclimate from the macro space outside. This in itself is a sacred act. Architecture in itself conveys this idea of limited space. It’s a limit between the finite and the infinite. From this point of view, all architecture is sacred.”
Mariam Kamara
- “Architecture is the stage on which we live our lives.”
- “Architecture itself cannot make a more equitable world… but we can contribute with specific actions.”
- “Design can be a powerful tool for good.”
Marty Neumeier
- “The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong.”
Maya Lin
- “For the most part things never get built the way they were drawn.”
- “Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn’t predicate what you might do next.”
- “To fly we have to have resistance.”
- “I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That’s art to me.”
Michael Graves
- “Architecture cannot divorce itself from drawing, no matter how much new technology and methodologies come along.”
Mieke Gerritzen
- “Design is where science and art break even.”
Noreen Morioka
- “Being a famous designer is like being a famous dentist.”
Norman Foster
- “As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.”
- “Architecture is an expression of values.”
- “Everything we design is a response to the specific climate and culture of a particular place.”
- “I describe the design process as like the tip of the iceberg. What you don’t see is the long haul: all the endless auditing and things like that.”
- “Everything inspires me; sometimes I think I see things others don’t.”
- “If you weren’t an optimist, it would be impossible to be an architect.”
- “It takes a lot of effort to make a building look effortless.”
- “I think you never stop learning.”
Oscar Niemeyer
- “I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves.
- “Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends, and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.”
- “My architecture is easy to understand and enjoy, I hope it also is hard to forget.”
- “I was attracted by the curve — the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches.”
- “My work is not about ‘form follows function,’ but ‘form follows beauty’ or, even better, ‘form follows feminine.”
Peter Zumthor
- “What I try to do is the art of building, and the art of building is the art of construction; it is not only about forms and shapes and images.”
- “My first buildings, when I was about 30, were rejected for aesthetic reasons.”
- “When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history, and its sensuous qualities.”
- “Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life.”
- “My buildings should have an emotional core – a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice feeling.”
Petrula Vrontikis
- “Practice safe design: Use a concept.”
Philip Johnson
- “Architecture is the art of how to waste space beautifully.”
- “All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.”
- “I guess I can’t be a great architect. Great architects have a recognizable style. But if every building I did were the same, it would be pretty boring.”
- “The job of the architect today is to create beautiful buildings. That’s all.”
- “I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach?”
Rem Koolhaas
- “Architecture is a dangerous mix of power and importance.”
- “Infrastructure is much more important than architecture.”
- “Any architectural project we do takes at least four or five years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the continuing slowness of architecture.”
- “Architects work in two ways. One is to respond precisely to a client’s needs or demands. Another is to look at what the client asks and reinterpret it.”
- “The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics but that no architect worth their name wants to build a shoebox.”
- “The word ‘celebrity’ and the word ‘architect’ are basically incompatible.”
- “Architecture is a way of thinking about the world very similar in structure to writing a book since both disciplines represent the same field and domain.”
- “The acceptance of certain realities doesn’t preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs.”
- “A building has at least two lives – the one imagined by its maker and the life it lives afterward – and they are never the same.”
Renzo Piano
- “One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.”
- “Architects spend an entire life with this unreasonable idea that you can fight against gravity.”
- “You can put down a bad book; you can avoid listening to bad music; but you cannot miss the ugly tower block opposite your house.”
- “Architects have to dream. We have to search for our Atlantises, to be explorers, adventurers, and yet to build responsibly and well.”
Richard Rogers
- “The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.”
- “Dyslexia made me realize that people who say ‘but you can’t do that’ aren’t actually very important. I don’t take ‘no’ too seriously.”
- “I love my job. What would I retire to?”
Richard Saul Wurman
- “The fundamental failure of most graphic, product, architectural and even urban design is its insistence on serving the God of Looking-Good rather than the God of Being-Good.”
Robert Sullivan
- “Good architecture is like a good therapy session, a good marriage, a good poem – gently and almost invisibly allowing you to be you, as flawed and as beautiful as you are.”
Robert Venturi
- “Less is a bore.”
Santiago Calatrava
- “The important thing is to create. Nothing else matters; creation is all.”
- “The architect is not only the director, but he is the composer. And, as a composer, the architect brings a sense of creativity to each building.”
- “I am always searching for more light and space.”
- “I have tried to get close to the frontier between architecture and sculpture and to understand architecture as an art.”
Tadao Ando
- “All architecture has a public nature, I believe, so I would like to make a public space.”
- “I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.”
- “I like ruins because what remains is not the total design, but the clarity of thought, the naked structure, the spirit of the thing.”
- “The speed of change makes you wonder what will become of architecture.”
- “There is a role and function for beauty in our time.”
Thomas Edison
- “Hell, there are no rules here; We’re trying to accomplish something.”
Thomas Fuller
- “Light, God’s eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building.”
Walt Disney
- “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
Walter Gropius
- “Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning.”
- “Art itself cannot be taught, but craftsmanship can. Architects, painters, and sculptors are all craftsmen in the original sense of the word.”
- “Limitation makes the creative mind inventive.”
- “The mind is like an umbrella – it functions best when open.”
Winston Churchill
- “We shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us.”
Yinka Ilori
- “As designers, we have such power to make design change the world. We really need to make better use of our platform and do stuff that is useful.”
- “There is a Nigerian parable that says, ‘You shouldn’t throw stones as a bird may fly away.’ If someone has a passion then let them do it. Let people be what they want to be.”
- “Why should I feel like I don’t belong?”
Yoshio Taniguchi
- “Architecture is basically a container of something. I hope they will enjoy not so much the teacup, but the tea.”
Zaha Hadid
- “Architecture is unnecessarily difficult. It’s very tough.”
- “I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions.”
- “I really believe in the idea of the future.”
- “Architecture is like writing. You have to edit it over and over so it looks effortless.”
- “I’m into fashion because it contains the mood of the day, of the moment – like music, literature, and art.”
- “It’s very important that historic cities are allowed to reinvent their future.”
- “Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?”
- “I think about architecture all the time. That’s the problem. But I’ve always been like that. I dream it sometimes.”
- “There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?”
- “I don’t think that architecture is only about shelter… it should be able to excite you, to calm you, to make you think.”
- “Architecture is really about well-being. I think that people want to feel good in a space … On the one hand, it’s about shelter, but it’s also about pleasure.”
- “Architecture is the learned game, correct & magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.”
