Arthur Erickson Quotes

Quotes about:

• Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us.

  Arthur Erickson

  Spiritual, Moving, Space

  As quoted in "The Ultimate Book of Quotations edited by Joseph Demakis" by Joseph Demakis, (p. 13), 2012.

  49 Copy quote

• No amount of thought can ever reveal what comes unexpectedly.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Amount

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  27 Copy quote

• Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Thinking, Way

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  18 Copy quote

• Life is rich, always changing, always challenging, and we architects have the task of transmitting into wood, concrete, glass and steel, of transforming human aspirations into habitable and meaningful space.

  Arthur Erickson

  Meaningful, Glasses, Space

  16 Copy quote

• Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.

  Arthur Erickson

  Badass, Moving, Heart

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  15 Copy quote

• Inspiration in Science may have to do with ideas, but not in Art. In art it is in the senses that are instinctively responsive to the medium of expression.

  Arthur Erickson

  Art, Inspiration, Expression

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  12 Copy quote

• The heart, not the head, must be the guide.

  Arthur Erickson

  Heart, Rhyming, Guides

  Arthur Erickson's Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  12 Copy quote

• Our incapacity to comprehend other cultures stems from our insistence on measuring things in our own terms.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Other Cultures, Incapacity

  9 Copy quote

• Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Technology, Civilization

  Arthur Erickson's Address to the Institute of Canadian Bankers, www.arthurerickson.com. October 16, 1972.

  8 Copy quote

• Bankers cannot afford to be concerned with only the economic aspects of projects. There may be serious implications on the natural environment, the urban environment, on human culture.

  Arthur Erickson

  Bankers, Culture, May

  8 Copy quote

• Only when inspired to go beyond consciousness by some extraordinary insight does beauty manifest unexpectedly.

  Arthur Erickson

  Doe, Inspired, Consciousness

  7 Copy quote

• I plead for conservation of human culture, which is much more fragile than nature herself. We needn't destroy other cultures with the force of our own.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Other Cultures, Conservation

  8 Copy quote

• It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

  Arthur Erickson

  Self, Creative, Mystery

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

• You have to see a building to comprehend it. Photographs cannot convey the experience, nor film.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Film, Building

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

• Builders eventually took advantage of the look of modernism to build cheaply and carelessly.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Looks, Advantage

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  8 Copy quote

• Profit and bottom line, the contemporary mantra, eliminates the very source of architectural expression.

  Arthur Erickson

  Expression, Lines, Source

  8 Copy quote

• Our universities advocate fragmentation in their course systems.

  Arthur Erickson

  Advocating, University, Courses

  7 Copy quote

• Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.

  Arthur Erickson

  Criminal Mind, Emptiness, Illusion

  "Criminal Minds: Persuasion". TV Series, www.imdb.com. 2014.

  20 Copy quote

• Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.

  Arthur Erickson

  Art, Light, Energy

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

• After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared.

  Arthur Erickson

  Convincing Evidence, Space, Focus

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  8 Copy quote

• There is an increasing awareness of the interrelatedness of things. We are becoming less prone to accept an immediate solution without questioning its larger implications.

  Arthur Erickson

  Idaho, Becoming, Awareness

  9 Copy quote

• The tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before.

  Arthur Erickson

  Tourism, Tourists, Demand

  77 Copy quote

• In those countries with centuries of a craft tradition behind their building methods, techniques are tightly coordinated under the direction of the architect.

  Arthur Erickson

  Country, Artist, Technique

  7 Copy quote

• Our engineering departments build freeways which destroy a city or a landscape, in the process.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Engineering, Cities

  Arthur Erickson's Address to the Institute of Canadian Bankers, www.arthurerickson.com. October 16, 1972.

  8 Copy quote

• Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture.

  Arthur Erickson

  Art, Enemy, Architecture

  Speech to McGill University School of Architecture, www.arthurerickson.com. October 21, 2000.

  8 Copy quote

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