• A Ginkgo tree in a garden teaches patience.
    (Garden Koan)
  • It is better to enlighten than merely to shine.
    (St. Thomas Aquinas)
  • Only if we are capable of dwelling,
    only then can we build.
    (Martin Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking)
  • Ligna et lapides docebunt te,
    quod a magistris audire non posse.
    (Sticks & stones will teach you, what teachers cannot hear. - St. Bernard)
  • Working and becoming are one. When the carpenter stops working, the house will stop becoming. Still the axe and stop the growth.
    (Meister Eckhart, Sermons)
  • It is of the essence of art to bring back into order the multiplicity of Nature.
    (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, The Transformation of Nature in Art)
  • Ars imitator naturam in sua operatione.
    (Art imitates nature in its operations. - St. Thomas)
  • No quiero cambiar la arquitectura, lo que quiero cambiar es esa sociedad de mierda.
    (I don't want to change architecture, what I want to change
    is this shitty society. -Oscar Niemeyer)
  • Cracks are where the light comes in.
    Treasure them.
    (Leonard Cohen Building Koan)
  • Bilden - byldan - bold -
    beon - bud - bheu
    (to be, to exist, to grow--Proto-Indo-European meaning of "building")
  • While in a very remote land I was once invited in for a meal of fruit by a resident. He asked if I could explain how architecture might join the heavens and earth at once. Since I could not answer he sent me on my way hungry.
    (Memories from Youth)
  • If a Thing is not moved, no Sound arises.
    (Letter on Harmony, Regino of Prum, c. 900 A.D.)
  • Deru kugi wa utareru.
    (A nail that sticks up can be hammered down. – Japanese proverb)
  • It is better to give the fruits of one’s contemplation than merely to contemplate.
    (St. Thomas Aquinas)
  • Start by doing what’s necessary;
    then do what’s possible;
    and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
    (St. Francis of Assisi)
  • Your home is where the heart is, it's not a question about where you were born, or where you belong or the name of the city on your passport.
    It's where your heart is.
    (Flamenco dancer La Presy, teacher of Lara Bello, "First Yellow, Then Purple", 2013 AD)
  • Gardyn - gardin - gardinus - gher
    (to grasp, to enclose, to guard--Proto-Indo-European meaning of "garden")
  • The Architect has often been compared to that of a Conductor of a Great Orchestra. Today the ORCHESTRA HAS GONE ROGUE! The Owner provides a great score (site and goals) to work from, but each member of the orchestra is trumpeting their own particular concerns as most important: ADA, NFPA, ICC, contractor, subcontractors, engineers, designers, inspectors, plan checkers. and banks. What kind of baton will keep them on the same measure and beat?
    (Critique by a modern Classical Composer, c. 2012 AD)
  • God is in the details.
    (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe)
    And the details are the people.
    (God)
  • Is the inverse of a Civil Engineer,
    a civil disobedient engineer?
    (the military engineer's lament)
  • The reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
    (St. Augustine)
  • The proof of love is in the works.
    Where love exists, it works great things.
    (St. Gregory)
  • Lendh + skep =
    heath/pasture/prairie + scrape/shape/condition
    (Proto-Indo-European meaning of "landscape")
  • Architects are con-artists. With nothing more than paper and pencil, they magically con an owner into imagining something will appear before their very eyes; they con a contractor into committing that for a certain price he can make the thing appear; and they con a bank into believing that what will appear has value enough to secure a loan. And if the architect's incantations are sufficient, sure enough - the magic works and a Thing appears.
    (Shaman saying, 2013 AD)
  • Engineer - ingenious - ingenium -
    genus - generate - gene
    (to give birth--Proto-Indo-European origin of "engineer")
  • Ars sine scientia
    nihil est.
    (art without science is nothing - medieval master-builder proverb)
  • I must Create a System or be enslav'd by another Man’s; I will not Reason or Compare:
    my business is to Create.
    (William Blake)
  • Change is as good as a rest.
    (Old Oregon farm saying hinting at ways to design a restful place)
  • Form is never more than
    an extension of content.
    (poet Charles Olson)
  • When you ask a structural engineer if you need more structure, why is the answer always yes?
    (Building Koan)
  • Arkhein + teks = chief weaver
    (the one who begins, rules, and commands the weaving of the tents or the waddle & daub--Proto-Indo-European origin of "architect")
  • "Architecture" is a noun, and "Building" is a verb. If "Architecture" were made a verb, what difference would there be in the form of buildings?
    (Building Koan)
  • Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui aedificant eum.
    (Unless Great Spirit is used to build the place, in vain labor those who build it.
    - J.S. Bach, The Magnificat)
  • Don’t yell whoa when you’re in a mud hole.
    (Old Oregon farm saying for when driving a team of horses)
  • It's intuitive to think that anything complex has to be made by something more complex, but evolution theory says that complexity arises out of simplicity. That's a bottom up picture. I like that idea as a compositional idea, that you can set in place certain conditions and let them grow. It makes composing more like gardening than architecture.
    (Brian Eno)
  • Goethe said Architecture is Frozen Music; if so then Music must be Flowing Architecture. What would happen if the duality were dropped and we built flowing music to live in?
    (Goethe's Theory)
  • The Architect thinks he designs the building, but in the end, what the Builder constructs, is exactly right.
    (Building Koan)
  • Would a building become more like flowing music if residents moved by fire poles and vibrating suspension cables from room to room? Would it help if the building were constructed on a base that was spinning wildly around the Milky Way?
    (Corollary to Goethe's Theory)
  • Why do Architects have big egos, and midwives not? Are buildings more important than babies?
    (Building Koan)
Quotes change every 10 seconds - hold your mouse over a quote to pause it, or use right and left keys to navigate.