There are all kinds of inspirational quotes about architecture out there. We've compiled some of the best architecture quotes from famous architects for you to enjoy.

First, we have a list of our Top 10 Architecture Quotes, followed by an index of the most popular architect quotes from around the internet.

Have a quote about architecture that we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Top 10 Architecture Quotes

The following top 10 quotes about architecture from around the internet are in no particular order. 

1. "Architecture is basically a container of something. I hope they will enjoy not so much the teacup, but the tea."

– Yoshio Taniguchi

2. "A profound design process eventually makes the patron, the architect, and every occasional visitor in the building a slightly better human being."

– Juhani Pallasmaa

3. "A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."

-Frank Lloyd Wright

4. "To create, one must first question everything."

-Eileen Gray

5. "We shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us."

-Winston Churchill

6. "When we build, let us think that we build forever."

-John Ruskin

7. "I call architecture frozen music."

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

8. "God is in the details."

– Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

9. "People ignore design that ignores people."

– Frank Chimero

10. "Even a brick wants to be something."

-Louis Kahn

 

Top Quotes About Architecture (All)

“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

– Frank Gehry

“There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners.”

– Antonio Gaudi

“Early in my career...I had to choose between an honest arrogance and a hypercritical humility... I deliberately choose an honest arrogance, and I've never been sorry.”

–  Frank Lloyd Wright

"Any architectural work that does not express serenity is an error."

– Luis Barragán

"Whatever good things we build end up building us."

– Jim Rohn

"I call architecture frozen music."

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Each new situation requires a new architecture."

– Jean Nouvel

"Architecture is inhabited sculpture."

– Constantin Brancusi

"98% of what gets built today is shit."

– Frank Gehry

"We do not create the work. I believe we, in fact, are discoverers."

– Glenn Murcutt

"The door handle is the handshake of the building."

– Juhani Pallasmaa

"I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build."

– Ayn Rand

"God is in the details."

– Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

"Even a brick wants to be something."

– Louis Kahn

"A room is not a room without natural light."

– Louis Kahn

"The Sun does not realize how wonderful it is until after a room is made."

– Louis Kahn

"A design isn't finished until someone is using it."

– Brenda Laurel

"Everything is designed. Few things are designed well."

– Brian Reed

"Practice safe design: Use a concept."

– Petrula Vrontikis

"People ignore design that ignores people. "

– Frank Chimero

"Architecture is a dangerous mix of power and importance."

– Rern Koolhaas

"Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because the idea wasn't theirs."

– Frank Chimero

"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 Sullivan

"In pure architecture the smallest detail should have a meaning or serve a purpose."

– Augustus W. N. Pugin

"The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong."

– Marty Neumeier

"Architecture never derived its force from stability of culture, but rather from the expression of those moments when that sense of stability slipped."

– Mark Wigley

"I've noticed the computer sometimes leads to rather bland decision-making; Now, anybody can do a wobbly, blobby building."

– Peter Cook

"I like ruins because what remains is not the total design, but the clarity of thought, the naked structure, the spirit of the thing."

–Tadao Ando

"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."

– Frank Lloyd Wright

"Design is where science and art break even."

– Mieke Gerritzen

"Hell, there are no rules here; We're trying to accomplish something."

– Thomas Edison

"A profound design process eventually makes the patron, the architect, and every occasional visitor in the building a slightly better human being."

– Juhani Pallasmaa

"Being a famous designer is like being a famous dentist."

– Noreen Morioka

"Light, God's eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building."

– Thomas Fuller

"Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task, therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise."

– Adolf Loos

"The desire to reach for the sky runs very deep in the human psyche."

– César Pelli

"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."

– Carrie Phillips

"Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It's based on wonder."

– Daniel Libeskind

"Very often the opinion of the clients must be disregarded in their own interest."

–John M. Johnson

"We shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us."

– Winston Churchill

"All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks."

– Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money."

– Ambrose Bierce

"Architecture is basically a container of something. I hope they will enjoy not so much the teacup, but the tea."

– Yoshio Taniguchi

"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."

– Richard Saul Wurman

"When we build, let us think that we build forever."

– John Ruskin

"I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do."

– Frank Gehry

"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."

– David Chipperfield

"It’s kind of fun to do the impossible."

– Walt Disney

"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 limiting space. It’s a limit between the finite and the infinite. From this point of view, all architecture is sacred."

– Mario Botta

"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."

– Frank Stella

 “Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.”  

– Charles Eames

 “To create, one must first question everything.”

– Eileen Gray

"For the most part things never get built the way they were drawn.”

– Maya Lin

 

 

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