Since it [architecture] is music in space, as it were a frozen music…. If architecture in general is frozen music. Friedrich Schelling
Windows and doors, in nameless sculpture drest,With order, symmetry, or taste unblest;Forms like some bedlam-statuary's dream,The craz'd creations of misguided whim. Robert Burns The Brigs of Ayr (1787)
Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome,* * * * * *No single parts unequally surprise,All comes united to th' admiring eyes. Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism (1709)
Architectural History is more than just the study of buildings. Architecture of the past and the present remains an essential emblem of a distinctive social system and set of cultural values, and as a result it has been the subject of study of a variety of disciplines. Dana Arnold Reading Architectural History (2002)
When we mean to build,We first survey the plot, then draw the model;And when we see the figure of the house,Then must we rate the cost of the erection. William Shakespeare
The architectBuilt his great heart into these sculptured stones,And with him toiled his children, and their livesWere builded, with his own, into the walls,As offerings unto God. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It was stated, * * * that the value of architecture depended on two distinct characters:—the one, the impression it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural creation. John Ruskin
[Makes a good architect] an open mind, energy, an appetite for hard work, a willingness to explore new solutions and push boundaries. A sense of humor is also helpful. Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank
Dancing and architecture are the two primary and essential arts. The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite. Havelock Ellis
The hasty multitudeAdmiring enter'd, and the work some praise,And some the architect: his hand was knownIn heaven by many a tower'd structure high,Where scepter'd angels held their residence,And sat as princes. John Milton
The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in man. The mountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower, with the lightness and delicate finish, as well as the ærial proportions and perspective of vegetable beauty. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,Wrought in a sad sincerity,Himself from God he could not free;He builded better than he knew,The conscious stone to beauty grew. Ralph Waldo Emerson Poems (1847)
Grandeur * * * consists in form, and not in size: and to the eye of the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper two inches long, is just as magnificent, just as symbolic of divine mysteries and melodies, as when embodied in the span of some cathedral roof. Charles Kingsley
Architects know that some kinds of design problems are more personal than others. One of the cleanest, most abstract design problems is designing bridges. There your job is largely a matter of spanning a given distance with the least material. The other end of the spectrum is designing chairs. Chair designers have to spend their time thinking about human butts. Paul Graham
An architect, to be a true exponent of his time, must possess first, last and always the sympathy, the intuition of a poet … this is the one real, vital principle that survives through all places and all times. Louis Sullivan Emotional Architecture as Compared to Intellectual (1894)
We all see more of architecture than of any other art. Every street is a gallery of architects’ work, and in most streets, whatever their age, there is good work and bad. Through these amusing shows many of us walk unperceivingly, all our days, like illiterates in a library, so richly does the fashionable education provide us with blind sides . Charles Edward Montague The Right Place (1924)
I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be within and without: * * * with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history. John Ruskin