Quotes By Arthur Erickson

This great, though disastrous, culture can only change as we begin to stand off and see... the inveterate materialism which has become the model for cultures around the world.

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.

We have today a fairly thorough knowledge of the early Greco-Roman period because our motivations are the same.

Nearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad.

We are stymied by regulations, limited choice and the threat of litigation. Neither consultants nor industry itself provide research which takes architecture forward.

We can appreciate but not really understand the medieval town. We cannot comprehend its compactness, the contiguity of all its buildings as a single uninterrupted whole.

The great dream merchant Disney was a success because make-believe was what everyone seemed to need in a spiritually empty land.

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

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

Our universities advocate fragmentation in their course systems.

The Achilles Heel of the Americas was the lack of cultural confidence typical of new settlers.

Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.

The way of architecture is the quiet voice that underlies it and has guided it from the beginning.

We are guilty for sending teams into foreign countries to advise them how to be like us.

Nowhere has specialization penetrated so deeply into the building professions as North America.

Tahiti has been spoiled for many years, but Bali is one of the few cultures with origins in one of the great ancient cultures which is still alive.

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

No phenomenon can be isolated, but has repercussions through every aspect of our lives. We are learning that we are a fundamental part of nature's ecosystems.

No wonder the film industry started in the desert in California where, like all desert dwellers, they dream their buildings, rather than design them.

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

Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.

God's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the self-made men, who take the credit.

Today's developer is a poor substitute for the committed entrepreneur of the last century for whom the work of architecture represented a chance to celebrate the worth of his enterprise.

Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.

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

The Renaissance is studded by the names of the artists and architects, with their creations recorded as great historical events.

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.

What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.

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

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