We've picked 50 quotations by architects and about architecture. Some are commonly known, others are less known, but look to us as very significant in the processes of shaping the personality of a contemporary planner.

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe



A house is a machine for living in. Le Corbusier



I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies. Le Corbusier



Be not afraid of being called un-fashionable. Adolf Loos



Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci



Architecture is really about well-being. I think that people want to feel good in a space… On the one hand it's about shelter, but it's also about pleasure. Zaha Hadid



Architects spend an entire life with this unreasonable idea that you can fight against gravity. Renzo Piano 



Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake. Luis Barragán



The room is there for the human being – not the human being for the room. El Lissitzky



The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not. Adolf Loos



Be truthful. Nature only sides with truth. Adolf Loos



To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It's a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works. Ai Weiwei



I tell you, it is easier to build a grand opera or a city center than to build a personal house. Alvar Aalto



A good architect works slowly. Alvaro Siza



The difference between good and bad architecture is the time you spend on it. David Chipperfield



If a building is not precise, it is not just the fault of the craftsman. It is the architect who does not think in a precise manner. Valerio Olgiati



When you are an architect you think about food. French food has 20 ingredients and you do not know what you are eating. I like Italian food. You know what you eat. It is clear. Valerio Olgiati



Architecture is the reaching out for the truth. Louis Kahn



Nothing requires the architect's care more than the due proportions of buildings. Vitruvius



We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us. Winston Churchill



Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times. Richard Rogers



We should concentrate our work not only to a separated housing problem but housing involved in our daily work and all the other functions of the city. Alvar Aalto



There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans. Jane Jacobs



What people want, above all, is order. Stephen Gardiner



In the big picture, architecture is the art and science of making sure that our cities and buildings fit with the way we want to live our lives. Bjarke Ingels



Infrastructure is much more important than architecture. Rem Koolhaas



Architecture is a very dangerous job. If a writer makes a bad book, eh, people don't read it. But if you make bad architecture, you impose ugliness on a place for a hundred years. Renzo Piano



Architecture is about public space held by buildings. Richard Rogers



Architecture is always political. Richard Rogers



I think the chance of finding beauty is higher if you don't work on it directly. Beauty in architecture is driven by practicality. This is what you learn from studying the old townscapes of the Swiss farmers. Peter Zumthor



I suppose I'm trying to build an architecture that's as timeless as possible, although we're all creatures of our age. David Chipperfield



There is a lot of bad architecture. What we need more is to look at how our landscape should look in the next decades. 



The more centralized the power, the less compromises need to be made in architecture. Peter Eisenman



You have to accept as an architect to be exposed to criticism. Architecture should not rely on full harmony. Renzo Piano



Architecture is a negotiated art, and it's highly political, and if you want to make buildings, there is diplomacy required. Thom Mayne



Britain loves a bargain, but you don't get good, lasting architecture on the cheap. David Chipperfield



An important work of architecture will create polemics. Richard Meier



Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities. Jane Jacobs



You can't rely on bringing people downtown, you have to put them there. Jane Jacobs



The real jungle is in the office of the bureaucrats. Jane Jacobs



If a project is intense, valid, and has a powerful idea, its imperfections will be in the background. Alberto Campo Baeza



Dyslexia made me realize that people who say 'but you can't do that' aren't actually very important. I don't take 'no' too seriously. Richard Rogers



Buildings are deeply emotive structures which form our psyche. David Adjaye



If we learn to build with local materials, we have a future. Francis Kere



I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach? Philip Johnson



Architecture is about people. Francis Kere



I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do. Frank Ghery



Architecture is an expression of values. Norman Foster



To create, one must first question everything. Eileen Gray



A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe