Alvar Aalto Quotes

• Beauty is the harmony of purpose and form.

  Alvar Aalto

  Purpose, Harmony, Form

  48 Copy quote

• Form must have a content, and that content must be linked with nature.

  Alvar Aalto

  Form, Linked

  70 Copy quote

• The ultimate goal of the architect...is to create a paradise. Every house, every product of architecture... should be a fruit of our endeavour to build an earthly paradise for people.

  Alvar Aalto

  People, Goal, House

  65 Copy quote

• Objects are made to be completed by the human mind.

  Alvar Aalto

  Mind, Made, Humans

  28 Copy quote

• Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy.

  Alvar Aalto

  Design, Tragedy, Shapes

  Alvar Aalto, Karl Fleig, Elissa Aalto (1990). “Alvar Aalto: 1963-1970 (3. Aufl.)”

  68 Copy quote

• True architecture exists only where man stands in the center.

  Alvar Aalto

  Men, Architecture

  Alvar Aalto, Peter Reed, Kenneth Frampton, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1998). “Alvar Aalto: between humanism and materialism”, ABRAMS

  29 Copy quote

• Nothing is as dangerous in architecture as dealing with separated problems. If we split life into separated problems we split the possibilities to make good building art.

  Alvar Aalto

  Art, Design, Splits

  82 Copy quote

• We should work for simple, good, undecorated things, but things which are in harmony with the human being and organically suited to the little man in the street.

  Alvar Aalto

  Simple, Men, Littles

  Alvar Aalto (1970). “Synopsis”, Birkhauser

  34 Copy quote

• Nothing old is ever reborn, but neither does it totally disappear. And that which has once been [born], will always reappear in a new form.

  Alvar Aalto

  Doe, Disappear, Form

  "Your Chair, Mr. Aalto. Yes, It Now Has Eyes" by Julie Lasky, www.nytimes.com. June 29, 2011.

  27 Copy quote

• Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction.

  Alvar Aalto

  Mean, Immature, Doe

  42 Copy quote

• Building art is a synthesis of life in materialised form. We should try to bring in under the same hat not a splintered way of thinking, but all in harmony together.

  Alvar Aalto

  Art, Hate, Thinking

  57 Copy quote

• Architecture belongs to culture, not to civilization.

  Alvar Aalto

  Civilization, Culture, Architecture

  20 Copy quote

• I tell you, it is easier to build a grand opera or a city center than to build a personal house.

  Alvar Aalto

  Cities, House, Opera

  31 Copy quote

• God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is at least for me an abuse of paper.

  Alvar Aalto

  Drawing, Abuse, Purpose

  41 Copy quote

• It is the task of the architect to give life a gentler structure.

  Alvar Aalto

  Giving, Tasks, Architecture

  "Aalto in Finland" by R.W. Apple, Jr., www.nytimes.com. November 26, 1978.

  20 Copy quote

• We should work for simple, good, undecorated things

  Alvar Aalto

  Simple, Should

  Alvar Aalto (1970). “Synopsis”, Birkhauser

  7 Copy quote

• The very essence of architecture consists of a variety and development reminiscent of natural organic life. This is the only true style in architecture

  Alvar Aalto

  Essence, Style, Development

  "Biography/ Mini Bio". www.imdb.com.

  22 Copy quote

• I do not write, I build.

  Alvar Aalto

  Writing

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  17 Copy quote

• The most difficult problems are naturally not involved in the search for forms for contemporary life. It is a question of working our way to forms behind which real human values lie.

  Alvar Aalto

  Real, Lying, Way

  22 Copy quote

• Architecture is not merely national but clearly has local ties in that it is rooted in the earth.

  Alvar Aalto

  Ties, Earth, Architecture

  15 Copy quote

• Even the smallest daily chore can be humanized with the harmony of culture.

  Alvar Aalto

  Culture, Harmony, Chores

  19 Copy quote

• In almost every task involving form, there are dozens, often hundreds of contradictory elements, which need to be forced to work in harmony by man's will. This harmony can be acheived only through art.

  Alvar Aalto

  Art, Men, Tasks

  16 Copy quote

• The best standardisation committee in the world is nature herself, but in nature standardisation occurs mainly in connection with the smallest possible units: cells. The result is millions of flexible combinations in which one never encounters the stereotyped.

  Alvar Aalto

  Cells, Encounters, Connections

  Alvar Aalto, J. Stewart Johnson (1984). “Alvar Aalto, Furniture and Glass: Exhibition the Museum of Modern Art, New York”

  21 Copy quote

• Just as it takes time for a speck of fish spawn to develop into a fully grown fish, so, too, we need time for everything that develops and crystallizes in the world of ideas. Architecture demands more of this time than other creative work.

  Alvar Aalto

  Ideas, Creative, Needs

  Alvar Aalto, Alvar Aalto-museo (1994). “Alvar Aalto: points of contact”

  52 Copy quote

• Our time is so specialised that we have people who know more and more or less and less.

  Alvar Aalto

  People, Our Time, Knows

  15 Copy quote

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