” Architecture has curled up in a ball and it’s about itself. It has found itself either as a freakshow, where you’re not sure if it’s good or bad but at least it’s interesting, or at the behest of forces of commerce. “
” The difference between good and bad architecture is the time you spend on it. “
” Britain loves a bargain, but you don’t get good, lasting architecture on the cheap. “
” If you look at a building by Mies van der Rohe, it might look very simple, but up close, the sheer quality of construction, materials and thought are inspirational. “
” It used to be presumed that if you weren’t at your desk working, you weren’t working, But we said, ‘Why can’t we make a workplace where casual meetings are as important as working at your desk?’ Sometimes that’s where your better creative work happens. “
” When the Americans are behind you, they’re behind you 100%, and this gives you real confidence as an architect. They expect you to lead a building project – to make the kind of big and costly decisions that, in Britain, have been handed over to project managers and cost-cutters. “
” You don’t restore ‘The Last Supper’ by filling in the missing bits – you preserve. You accept the material that has somehow survived. “
” It’s unfortunate that a certain type of stripped-down classicism became the in-house architectural language for 20th-century fascism. Can an architectural language recover from such an association? Yes, I think it can, because in the end what you’re talking about is a column and beam. “
” A building is no good if someone’s got to explain to you why it’s good. You can’t say you don’t know enough about architecture – that’s ridiculous. It’s got to work on many levels. “
” Seeing architecture differently from the way you see the rest of life is a bit weird. I believe one should be consistent in all that one does, from the books you read to the way you bring up your children. Everything you do is connected. “
All 10 David Chipperfield Quotes about You in picture
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