Design Quotations
Sandy McCreery
Landmarks, Corridors and (Green) Grids
One of the reasons I love the spaces of the East London Green Grid is that they just are. They've developed their unique characters preliminary through the doing of things, not the representation of them. They're places where you can escape landmarks; get away from grand gestures. Some people might describe them as neglect, but that's not strictly true. They've all been used, just not in ways that necessarily seek to seduce us. You could say there's integrity about them. In their absence of a script, they leave more room for our own imaginative exploration. Personally, I'm often moved by their apparent stillness, which is a peculiar notion because landscapes don't really move that much anyway unless you're looking closely. My hunch is that it stems from recognising these landscapes first and foremost as social spaces; we know that they are part of London, and have often played an important role in London's successful functioning. Yet, these connections seem harder to perceive than they are in the rest of London. It is as if they have gone quiet, and we have to reconstruct the lives of the place from the clues we can pick up.
Sandy McCreery, Green Grid Primer, Landmarks, Corridors and (Green) Grids (London: Greater London Authority, 2006) p 14.
One of the reasons I love the spaces of the East London Green Grid is that they just are. They've developed their unique characters preliminary through the doing of things, not the representation of them. They're places where you can escape landmarks; get away from grand gestures. Some people might describe them as neglect, but that's not strictly true. They've all been used, just not in ways that necessarily seek to seduce us. You could say there's integrity about them. In their absence of a script, they leave more room for our own imaginative exploration. Personally, I'm often moved by their apparent stillness, which is a peculiar notion because landscapes don't really move that much anyway unless you're looking closely. My hunch is that it stems from recognising these landscapes first and foremost as social spaces; we know that they are part of London, and have often played an important role in London's successful functioning. Yet, these connections seem harder to perceive than they are in the rest of London. It is as if they have gone quiet, and we have to reconstruct the lives of the place from the clues we can pick up.
Sandy McCreery, Green Grid Primer, Landmarks, Corridors and (Green) Grids (London: Greater London Authority, 2006) p 14.
Bow in East London by Miles Weber, 2011
David Leatherbarrow
Not really the same, nor entirely different, landscape and architecture are quite simply similar to each other. Topography is the topic (theme, framework, place) they hold in common. It not only establishes their similarities but also provides them with the grounds for their contribution to contemporary culture. The task of landscape architecture and architecture, as topographical arts, is to provide the prosaic patterns of our lives with durable dimensions and beautiful expressions.
David Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories - Studies in Landscape and Architecture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) p 1.
... the study presented here considers the relationships between the building's context and construction; my thesis is that place and production, topography and technology, are in conflict in late modern architecture, because while the technical objects incorporated into buildings are conceived independent of territorial considerations, constructed buildings never are.
While it is natural and necessary for architects to concentrate on the building itself, the bright light of this focus often eclipses the surrounding world, darkening the very horizon that grants the building its standing. Anyone who stops to think about it knows perfectly well that individual settings are always interconnected with and dependent on the horizon that transcends them, sewn into the fabric of rooms, buildings, streets, towns, and nature; but that in design work the colors of this textile are often allowed to fade to a dull or penumbral shade.
David Leatherbarrow, Uncommon Ground (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000) p vi and p 170.
David Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories - Studies in Landscape and Architecture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) p 1.
... the study presented here considers the relationships between the building's context and construction; my thesis is that place and production, topography and technology, are in conflict in late modern architecture, because while the technical objects incorporated into buildings are conceived independent of territorial considerations, constructed buildings never are.
While it is natural and necessary for architects to concentrate on the building itself, the bright light of this focus often eclipses the surrounding world, darkening the very horizon that grants the building its standing. Anyone who stops to think about it knows perfectly well that individual settings are always interconnected with and dependent on the horizon that transcends them, sewn into the fabric of rooms, buildings, streets, towns, and nature; but that in design work the colors of this textile are often allowed to fade to a dull or penumbral shade.
David Leatherbarrow, Uncommon Ground (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000) p vi and p 170.
Berlin Party Wall
Bernhard Rudofsky
Architecture without Architects
In orthodox architectural history, the emphasis is on the work of the individual architect; here the accent is on communal enterprise. Pietro Belluschi defined communal architecture as "a communal art not produced by a few intellectuals or specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting under a community experience." It may be argued that this art has no place in a raw civilisation, but even so, the lesson to be derived from this architecture need not be completely lost to us.
There is much to learn from architecture before it became an expert's art. The untutored builders in space and time demonstrate an admirable talent for fitting their buildings into the natural surroundings. In stead of trying to "conquer" nature, as we do, they welcome the vagaries of climate and the challenge of topography.
The beauty of this architecture has long been dismissed as accidental, but today we should be able to recognise it as a result of rare good sense in the handling of practical problems. The shapes of the houses, sometimes transmitted through a hundred generations, seem eternally valid, like those of their tools.
Bernhard Rudofsky, Architecture without Architects (London: Academy Editions, 1981) pp 11-12.
In orthodox architectural history, the emphasis is on the work of the individual architect; here the accent is on communal enterprise. Pietro Belluschi defined communal architecture as "a communal art not produced by a few intellectuals or specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting under a community experience." It may be argued that this art has no place in a raw civilisation, but even so, the lesson to be derived from this architecture need not be completely lost to us.
There is much to learn from architecture before it became an expert's art. The untutored builders in space and time demonstrate an admirable talent for fitting their buildings into the natural surroundings. In stead of trying to "conquer" nature, as we do, they welcome the vagaries of climate and the challenge of topography.
The beauty of this architecture has long been dismissed as accidental, but today we should be able to recognise it as a result of rare good sense in the handling of practical problems. The shapes of the houses, sometimes transmitted through a hundred generations, seem eternally valid, like those of their tools.
Bernhard Rudofsky, Architecture without Architects (London: Academy Editions, 1981) pp 11-12.
Rem Koolhaas
What Ever Happened to Urbanism?
The neatness of architecture is its seduction; it defines, excludes, limits, separates from the "rest" - but it also consumes. It exploits and exhausts the potentials that can be generated finally only by urbanism, and that only the specific imagination of urbanism can invent and renew.
Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S,M,L,XL (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995) p 967.
The neatness of architecture is its seduction; it defines, excludes, limits, separates from the "rest" - but it also consumes. It exploits and exhausts the potentials that can be generated finally only by urbanism, and that only the specific imagination of urbanism can invent and renew.
Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S,M,L,XL (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995) p 967.
Juhani Pallasmaa
Eye, Hand and Mind
For the sportsman, craftsman, magician and artist alike, the seamless and unconscious collaboration of the eye, hand and mind is crucial. As the performance is gradually perfected, perception, action of the hand and thought lose their independence and turn into a singular and subliminally coordinated system of reaction and response. Finally it is the maker's sense exuded the work, or performance. The maker's identification with the work is complete. At the best, the mental and material flow between the maker and the work is so tantalising that the work seems to be producing itself. This is actually the essence of the ecstatic experience of a creative outburst; artists repeatedly report that they feel that they are merely recording what is revealed to them and what emerges involuntarily beyond their conscious intellectual control. "The landscape thinks itself in me, and I am its consciousness", Paul Cézanne confesses.
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2009) p 82.
Paul Cézanne, as quoted in Maurice Merlau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense (Evanston Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1991) p 17.
For the sportsman, craftsman, magician and artist alike, the seamless and unconscious collaboration of the eye, hand and mind is crucial. As the performance is gradually perfected, perception, action of the hand and thought lose their independence and turn into a singular and subliminally coordinated system of reaction and response. Finally it is the maker's sense exuded the work, or performance. The maker's identification with the work is complete. At the best, the mental and material flow between the maker and the work is so tantalising that the work seems to be producing itself. This is actually the essence of the ecstatic experience of a creative outburst; artists repeatedly report that they feel that they are merely recording what is revealed to them and what emerges involuntarily beyond their conscious intellectual control. "The landscape thinks itself in me, and I am its consciousness", Paul Cézanne confesses.
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2009) p 82.
Paul Cézanne, as quoted in Maurice Merlau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense (Evanston Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1991) p 17.
Richard Sennett
The Craftsman
The good teacher imparts a satisfying explanation; the great teacher unsettles, bequeaths disquiet, invites argument.
I make two contentious arguments: first, that all skills, even the most abstract, begin as bodily practices; second, that technical understanding develops through the powers of imagination.
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (London: Allen Lane, 2008) p 6 and 10.
The good teacher imparts a satisfying explanation; the great teacher unsettles, bequeaths disquiet, invites argument.
I make two contentious arguments: first, that all skills, even the most abstract, begin as bodily practices; second, that technical understanding develops through the powers of imagination.
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (London: Allen Lane, 2008) p 6 and 10.
Peter Salter
Intuition & Process
Precision can be about the tolerances involved in components, while accuracy is an instinctive thing. Precision has to do with the skill of crafting, whereas accuracy is about how fine the instinctive understanding my be. No matter how you hone and tune it, accuracy remains a kind of gut reaction. When people enter a space they should be able to feel it as well. It's the difference between something learned and a talent.
To understand the underlying intention of the proposal, it is necessary to decompose the designed building into a series of related fragments - just as an archeologist would make drawings of the finds uncovered at his site.
Peter Salter, Intuition & Process, TS - Technical Studies (London: Architectural Association, 1989) p 9 and 14.
Precision can be about the tolerances involved in components, while accuracy is an instinctive thing. Precision has to do with the skill of crafting, whereas accuracy is about how fine the instinctive understanding my be. No matter how you hone and tune it, accuracy remains a kind of gut reaction. When people enter a space they should be able to feel it as well. It's the difference between something learned and a talent.
To understand the underlying intention of the proposal, it is necessary to decompose the designed building into a series of related fragments - just as an archeologist would make drawings of the finds uncovered at his site.
Peter Salter, Intuition & Process, TS - Technical Studies (London: Architectural Association, 1989) p 9 and 14.
Philippa Battye
According to Frederick R. Barnard, 'a picture is worth a thousand words' and a model is worth a thousand pictures.
Philippa Battye
Philippa Battye
Dimitris Pikionis
A Topography of Feeling
That nothing exists of itself, but everything is part of a universal Harmony. All things interpenetrate and suffer and are transformed into each other. And you can only perceive one thing by means of the other...
Dimitris Pikionis, 'A Topography of Feeling' (1933), quoted in Zissmos Lorenzatos, The Drama of Quality (Limni Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey, 2000) p 109.
That nothing exists of itself, but everything is part of a universal Harmony. All things interpenetrate and suffer and are transformed into each other. And you can only perceive one thing by means of the other...
Dimitris Pikionis, 'A Topography of Feeling' (1933), quoted in Zissmos Lorenzatos, The Drama of Quality (Limni Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey, 2000) p 109.
Christopher Alexander
If you don't love your project, don't do it. It has to come... über das Herz (from your heart).
According to Christopher Alexaner, the making of architecture and cities should be about wholeness. This concept addresses both a process and an understanding of an embracing interrelatedness. As such, architects and designers should engage everybody involved in making architecture as part of that wholeness, enabling a deeper participatory process of design evolution. This can be achieved by using tools or frameworks that a designer may develop, allowing an open and more appropriate process to unfold.
Christopher Alexander, Lecture in London 2011
According to Christopher Alexaner, the making of architecture and cities should be about wholeness. This concept addresses both a process and an understanding of an embracing interrelatedness. As such, architects and designers should engage everybody involved in making architecture as part of that wholeness, enabling a deeper participatory process of design evolution. This can be achieved by using tools or frameworks that a designer may develop, allowing an open and more appropriate process to unfold.
Christopher Alexander, Lecture in London 2011
From the left, John Worthington, Christopher Alexander and students by Khulood Nasaif, 2011
Gordon Cullen
The Concise Townscape
There are advantages to be gained from the gathering together of people to form a town. A single family living in the country can scarcely hope to drop into a theatre, have a meal out or browse the library, whereas the same family living in a town can enjoy these amenities. The little money that one family can afford is multiplied by thousands and so a collective amenity is made possible. A city is more than the sum of its inhabitants. It has the power to generate a surplus of amenity, which is one reason why people like to live in communities rather than in isolation.
Now turn to the visual impact which a city has on those who live in it or visit it. I wish to show that an argument parallel to the one above holds good for buildings: bring people together and they create a collective surplus of enjoyment; bring buildings together and collectively they can give visual pleasure which non can give separately.
One building standing alone in the countryside is experienced as a work of architecture, but bring half a dozen buildings together and an art other than architecture is made possible. Several things begin to happen in the group which would be impossible for the isolated building.
In fact there is an art of relationship just as there is an art of architecture.
Gordon Cullen, The Concise Townscape (Oxford: Architectural Press, 1971) p 7.
There are advantages to be gained from the gathering together of people to form a town. A single family living in the country can scarcely hope to drop into a theatre, have a meal out or browse the library, whereas the same family living in a town can enjoy these amenities. The little money that one family can afford is multiplied by thousands and so a collective amenity is made possible. A city is more than the sum of its inhabitants. It has the power to generate a surplus of amenity, which is one reason why people like to live in communities rather than in isolation.
Now turn to the visual impact which a city has on those who live in it or visit it. I wish to show that an argument parallel to the one above holds good for buildings: bring people together and they create a collective surplus of enjoyment; bring buildings together and collectively they can give visual pleasure which non can give separately.
One building standing alone in the countryside is experienced as a work of architecture, but bring half a dozen buildings together and an art other than architecture is made possible. Several things begin to happen in the group which would be impossible for the isolated building.
In fact there is an art of relationship just as there is an art of architecture.
Gordon Cullen, The Concise Townscape (Oxford: Architectural Press, 1971) p 7.
Ashish Ganju (Muni)
If we do not dream, we do not think.
If we do not dream, we do not build.
When you design something, all senses come into play.
You can not construct an idea, but you can construct from an idea.
Time is the most flexible thing.
Chronology is always linear.
Mobility is the greatest development of this Century, but also its biggest problem. We have not really found a measure of movement.
Traffic
Our mind does not work in a linear way.
Knowledge is constructed out of values and information.
Time is a measurement of movement.
Learning is a lifetime process.
Teaching makes only sense, or gives you something, when it is learning.
Authority
You cannot show it through labels, signs, etc. It is only about truth, and when it is truth, then people will join you.
Learning - as a process transforming the human being. Key for learning is understanding.
Freedom is connected with rules. Restrictions are liberty.
Any good architecture has to relate to all architecture.
The sky is the most wonderful roof I know.
From studies in India - Muni, Recorded by Jan Liebe, 1999
If we do not dream, we do not build.
When you design something, all senses come into play.
You can not construct an idea, but you can construct from an idea.
Time is the most flexible thing.
Chronology is always linear.
Mobility is the greatest development of this Century, but also its biggest problem. We have not really found a measure of movement.
Traffic
Our mind does not work in a linear way.
Knowledge is constructed out of values and information.
Time is a measurement of movement.
Learning is a lifetime process.
Teaching makes only sense, or gives you something, when it is learning.
Authority
You cannot show it through labels, signs, etc. It is only about truth, and when it is truth, then people will join you.
Learning - as a process transforming the human being. Key for learning is understanding.
Freedom is connected with rules. Restrictions are liberty.
Any good architecture has to relate to all architecture.
The sky is the most wonderful roof I know.
From studies in India - Muni, Recorded by Jan Liebe, 1999
Christoph Hadrys
Unfrozen
"The saying that 'Architecture is like frozen music' always slightly disturbed me. As I move, architecture moves around me and reveals itself, like music can only do. It has moments of fastness, capriccio, piano and rhythms that carry me... and then in the slower parts, I sense its presence beyond mine. In its stillness it reveals another movement that of material in time. Architecture is slowly aging along its own rhythm regardless of me. It travels along the journey of life that we have thought only living things can embark on."
London, Autumn 2014
"The saying that 'Architecture is like frozen music' always slightly disturbed me. As I move, architecture moves around me and reveals itself, like music can only do. It has moments of fastness, capriccio, piano and rhythms that carry me... and then in the slower parts, I sense its presence beyond mine. In its stillness it reveals another movement that of material in time. Architecture is slowly aging along its own rhythm regardless of me. It travels along the journey of life that we have thought only living things can embark on."
London, Autumn 2014
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