{"quotes":[{"text":"We are sometimes astounded by the behavior of emotional outlaws, as they act in line with their own standards, but proceed like bulls-in-a-china-shop, create one heck of a mess in their living environment and bring about shocking disturbing dissensions, ever since their inner construction clashes with our emotional architecture. (“Disruption”).","author":"Erik Pevernagie","tags":["act-in-line","architecture","astounded","behavior","bulls-in-a-china-shop","clash-with","create","disruption","dissension","disturbing","emotional","emotional-outlaws","inner-construction","living-environment","one-heck-of-a-mess","proceed","shocking","standards"],"id":1816,"author_id":"Erik+Pevernagie"},{"text":"For us to deem a work of architecture elegant, it is hence not enough that it look simple: we must feel that the simplicity it displays has been hard won, that it flows from the resolution of demanding technical or natural predicament. Thus we call the Shaker staircase in Pleasant Hill elegant because we know--without ever having constructed one ourselves--that a staircase is a site complexity, and that combinations of treads, risers and banisters rarely approach the sober intelligibility of the Sharkers' work. We deem a modern Swiss house elegant because we not how seamlessly its windows have been joined to their concrete walls, and how neatly the usual clutter of construction has been resolved away. We admire starkly simple works that we intuit would, without immense effort, have appeared very complicated. (p 209).","author":"Alain de Botton","tags":["architecture","complexity","complicated","construction","design","elegance","intuition","simplicity"],"id":3289,"author_id":"Alain+de+Botton"},{"text":"New Orleans is unlike any city in America. Its cultural diversity is woven into the food, the music, the architecture - even the local superstitions. It's a sensory experience on all levels and there's a story lurking around every corner.","author":"Ruta Sepetys","tags":["food","architecture "],"id":3953,"author_id":"Ruta+Sepetys"},{"text":"Be the best, not necessarily the original.","author":"I.M. Pei","tags":["architect","architecture","best","city","original"],"id":6683,"author_id":"I.M.+Pei"},{"text":"The flowering of geometry.","author":"Ralph Waldo Emerson","tags":["architects","architecture"],"id":8062,"author_id":"Ralph+Waldo+Emerson"},{"text":"What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star?That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian's. I remember it from a lecture of his on the Iliad, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles overjoyed at the sight of the apparition – tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes. The dead appear to us in dreams, said Julian, because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star…Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago.I found myself in a strange deserted city – an old city, like London – underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly – past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble.I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors.There was a cluster of men, all smoking pipes, gathered around an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below.I drew nearer. In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple… click click click… the Pyramids… the Parthenon.History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment.'I thought I'd find you here,' said a voice at my elbow.It was Henry. His gaze was steady and impassive in the dim light. Above his ear, beneath the wire stem of his spectacles, I could just make out the powder burn and the dark hole in his right temple.I was glad to see him, though not exactly surprised. 'You know,' I said to him, 'everybody is saying that you're dead.'He stared down at the machine. The Colosseum… click click click… the Pantheon. 'I'm not dead,' he said. 'I'm only having a bit of trouble with my passport.''What?'He cleared his throat. 'My movements are restricted,' he said.'I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like.'Hagia Sophia. St. Mark's, in Venice. 'What is this place?' I asked him.'That information is classified, I'm afraid.'1 looked around curiously. It seemed that I was the only visitor.'Is it open to the public?' I said.'Not generally, no.'I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.'Are you happy here?' I said at last.He considered this for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said.'But you're not very happy where you are, either.'St. Basil's, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch.'I hope you'll excuse me,' he said, 'but I'm late for an appointment.'He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall.","author":"Donna Tartt","tags":["architecture","classics","death","dreams","museum","unhappiness"],"id":14572,"author_id":"Donna+Tartt"},{"text":"Develop an infallible technique and then place yourself at the mercy of inspiration.","author":"Ralph Rapson","tags":["architects","architecture"],"id":15948,"author_id":"Ralph+Rapson"},{"text":"Integrating the beauty of seasonal change into the residence was a concept that remains true even today even in the more cramped, inner city machiya.","author":"Judith Clancy","tags":["architecture","food","history","japan","kyoto","machiya","restaurants","wwii"],"id":16172,"author_id":"Judith+Clancy"},{"text":"My hope is that light, flexible architecture might bring about a new and open society.","author":"Frei Otto","tags":["light","architecture","society "],"id":17303,"author_id":"Frei+Otto"},{"text":"We form a mental map, and then that shape, shapes us.","author":"Lois Farfel Stark","tags":["architecture","art","artists","buildings","images","mapmaking","mental-map","patterns","perspective","shape","shapes","viewpoint","views"],"id":17467,"author_id":"Lois+Farfel+Stark"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":235,"pages":24,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}