Architects from the United States

"If you would see how interwoven it is in the warp and woof of civilization ... go at night-fall to the top of one of the down-town steel giants and you may see how in the image of material man, at once his glory and his menace, is this thing we call a city. There beneath you is the monster, stretching acre upon acre into the far distance. High over head hangs the stagnant pall of its fetid breath, reddened with light from myriad eyes endlessly, everywhere blinking. Thousands of acres of cellular tissue, the city's flesh outspreads layer upon layer, enmeshed by an intricate network of veins and arteries radiating into the gloom, and in them, with muffled, persistent roar, circulating as the blood circulates in your veins, is the almost ceaseless beat of the activity to whose necessities it all conforms. The poisonous waste is drawn from the system of this gigantic creature by infinitely ramifying, thread-like ducts, gathering at their sensitive terminals matter destructive of its life, hurrying it to millions of small intestines to be collected in turn by larger, flowing to the great sewers, on to the drainage canal, and finally to the ocean."

"Pictures deface walls oftener than they decorate them."

"It is where life is fundamental and free that men develop the vision needed to reveal the human soul in the blossoms it puts forth. ... In a great workshop like Chicago this creative power germinates, even though the brutality and selfish preoccupation of the place drive it elsewhere for bread. Men of this type have loved Chicago, have worked for her, and believed in her. The hardest thing they have to bear is her shame. These men could live and work here when to live and work in New York would stifle their genius and fill their purse.... New York still believes that art should be imported; brought over in ships; and is a quite contented market place. So while New York has reproduced much and produced nothing, Chicago's achievements in architecture have gained world-wide recognition as a distinctively American architecture."

"No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other."

"So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal."

"I'm no teacher. Never wanted to teach and don't believe in teaching an art. Science yes, business of course..but an art cannot be taught. You can only inculcate it, you can be an exemplar, you can create an atmosphere in which it can grow. Well I suppose I, being an exemplar, could be called a teacher, in spite of myself. So go ahead, call me a teacher."

"A free America, democratic in the sense that our forefathers intended it to be, means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call 'democracy' is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it."

"Every great architect is — necessarily — a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age."

"The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."

"I doubt if there is anything in the world uglier than a Midwestern city."

"Clear out 800,000 people and preserve it as a museum piece."

"New York: Prison towers and modern posters for soap and whiskey. Pittsburgh: Abandon it."

"If you're going to have centralization, why not have it!"

"The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist."

"I believe in God, only I spell it "Nature"."

"Nature is all the body of God we mortals will ever see."

"Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived."

"Here I am, Philip, am I indoors or am I out? Do I take my hat off or keep it on?"

"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you."

"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change."

"God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature and it has been said often by philosophers, that nature is the will of God. And, I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see. If we wish to know the truth concerning anything, we'll find it in the nature of that thing."

"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen."

"Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life."

"About Le Corbusier: Well, now that he's finished one building, he'll go write four books about it."

"Philosophy is to the mind of the architect as eyesight is to his steps. The term "genius" when applied to him simply means a man who understands what others only know about."

"Everyone engaged in creative work is subject to persecution by the odious comparison. Odious comparisons dog the footsteps of all creation wherever the poetic principle is involved because the inferior mind learns only by comparisons; comparisons, usually equivocal, made by selfish interests each for the other. But the superior mind learns by analyses: the study of Nature."

"So the poet in the engineer and the engineer in the poet and both in the architect may be seen here working together, lifelong."

"To survive, our American art was cheating itself of life."

"Everywhere these inventions of science by ignorant misuse of a new technique were wiping out the artist."

"But soon this saving virtue appeared to me in our disgraceful dilemma: Realization that any true cultural significance our American free society could know lay in the proper use of the machine as a tool and used only as a tool."

"Different were the prophets of the human soul."

"Success was misunderstood as essential to progress. Really success was worse than failure."

"If the abstraction is truly made well above the animal nature in man—his gregarious nature—it will keep the ancient rituals of his higher nature as long as possible. Human abstractions if true usually become ritual."

"What means more to the life of the individual in our own place in Time than this study of the nature of human nature, the search to discover pertinent traces of hidden impulses of life, to form continually new abstractions uplifting the life he lives?"

"Might not the spirit of creative art, desperately needed by man, lie in the proper use of the radical new technologies of our times, and so arise?"

"This drift toward quantity instead of quality is largely distortion. Conformity is always too convenient? Quality means individuality, is therefore difficult. But unless we go deeper now, quantity at expense to quality will be our national tragedy—the rise of mediocrity into high places."

"Servility increases—already a seemingly unguarded danger to democracy not only in art and architecture and religion but in all phases of life."

"Between the radical and the conformist lies all the difference between a lithe tendon and a length of gas-pipe."

"See the last chapter in Genesis where Cain, the murderer of his brother, went forth with his sons to found the city. The City is still murdering his brother."

"I then believed critics were by nature no less confused than confusing."

"Thus the plausible expedient has become gospel and continues to be generally foisted upon those who seek better things; the conformities proclaimed by authority, however specious, temporarily mistaken for Godhead."

"In every new expression of a fundamental Idea there will always be the substitutes, the imitations, dangling from it, as the soiled fringe from a good garment."

"Almost all our so-called "modern" is not yet new. It is merely novel by imitation or indirection; or pretense by imported picture."

"Is false abstraction always the consequence of spiritual degeneration?"

"Creation is not only rare but always hazardous. Always was."

"As a people we remain comparative strangers to our own life in our own time in our own home: native culture waiting in vain on our door step."

"For this, if for no other reason, degeneration of creative ability in America has had ample support, and what nobility our society might still have is in danger of being submerged in overwhelming tides of rising conformity."

"As for religion true to the teaching of the great redeemer who said "The Kingdom of God is within you—that religion is yet to come: the concept true not only for the new reality of building but for the faith we call democracy. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I have wanted to build this faith—life-long."

"Reform only means more conformity. It is form first that is needed."

"The soul of any civilization on earth has ever been and still is Art and Religion, but neither has ever been found in commerce, in government of the police."

"Votes are counted. Yes—but vision can neither be counted nor discounted."

"Both Art and Religion are on the way. Both must go hand in hand as ever before. Both together illuminating our sciences will constitute the soul of this civilization."

"Even though a disgrace, machine-made, ornament stayed and still thrives."

"No jealousy is comparable to professional jealousy."

"Exuberance to me early meant ecstacy of love, the poetic principle of life."

"Nature's own inexhaustible fertility is manifest exuberance, and never less than the elemental poetry of all her structure."

"There is nothing so timid as a million dollars."

"By being so far educated beyond his capacity is he unable to learn within himself from nature? Divorced as he is from her, who and what can now be his? Does the so-called free man of democracy merely exploit his sovereignity?"

"Architecture is intrinsic to Time, Place and Man."

"Science is inventive but creative never."

"Spirit is man's new power if he is to be truly mighty in his civilization."

"Only Art and Religion can bring this new vision as reality to a nation."

"The spiritual dignity of this new humane life for mankind is the Spirit of Man himself sacrosanct."

"Man either learns to usefor humanity his new facilities or he perishes by them."

"The petty bias of personal taste can no longer hide either excrescence or spiritual poverty in the name of style."

"Poetic is prophetic insight."

"Intellectual is not necessarily intelligent either."

"As melody is in music ornament is in architecture revelation of the poetic-principle, with character and significance."

"No! is always easier to say than Yes."

"... the huge business of education is not on speaking terms with culture and such culture as we now have is not on speaking terms with reality."

"Genuine expressions as essence of the great art itself cannot be taught or imitated. Nor can they in any way be forced."

"Great art has always, at first, been controversial. Now that our means of communication have multiplied, how much more so today?"

"Resemblances are mistaken for influences."

"Again: I found repeatedly confirmed that the inferior mind not only learns by comparison, but loosely confers its superlatives, while the superior mind which learns by analysis refrains from superlatives."

"I never had much respect for the collector's mind."

"The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears — as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk-happy."

"New York is the biggest mouth in the world. It appears to be prime example of the herd instinct, leading the universal urban conspiracy to beguile man from his birthright (the good ground), to hang him by his eyebrows from skyhooks above hard pavement, to crucify him, sell him, or be sold by him."

"“The-Shadow-of-the-Wall–Primitive Instincts Still Alive”"

"To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city is to look at something like the section of a fibrous tumor."

"All fine architectural values are human values, else not valuable."

"I find it hard to believe that the machine would go into the creative artist's hand even were that magic hand in true place. It has been too far exploited by industrialism and science at expense to art and true religion."

"The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope."

"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."

"There is nothing more uncommon than common sense."

"She was in a 'facility' which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright-pink and blue nestled in the hills-what artistry!"

"Among the great modern architects, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Kahn were arguably deists. ... Wright's use of the word “nature” did not mean only what-we-find-outdoors. It was something deeper. Wright knew that when people speak of the “nature of things” they mean their very essence, the that-which-makes-them-what- they-are, which is always and only one step away from that-who-makes- them-what-they-are. ... Wright thought not that he was God but that he brought or allowed God into the world through what he did, creating and designing. ... Wright actually thought himself a prophet, which of course is a different to being God, or an angel. ... bringing God into the world in an act of something like mid-wifery from the womb of nature, is not at all Moses-like. It is not a bringing down of Law from on high after personal coaching from God, but a bringing forth of a God already there in potential. There is no presumption of having seen or met God of the Bible. One makes the God one believes in happen."

"He's the greatest architect of the nineteenth century."

"His place in history is secure. His continuing influence is assured. This country's architectural achievements would be unthinkable without him. He has been a teacher to us all."

"The social outcome of the arts and crafts movement was not commensurate with the needs of the new situation; as Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright pointed out in his memorable speech at Hull House in 1908, the machine itself was as much an instrument of art, in the hands of an artist, as were the simple tools and utensils."

"So long, Frank Lloyd Wright. I can't believe your song is gone so soon. I barely learned the tune"

"At the basis of the Hiterlism mystique is the notion of "race." ... If ... we overlook the terminology that Hitler inherits from Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain—and that has become so repugnant to Americans because it has been made to appear primarily anti-Semitic—we shall find a different picture from what we had been led to expect by reading excerpts from the more lurid German "anthropologists." Reduced to plain terms, Hitler's "racism" is a perfectly simple though far-reaching idea. It is the myth of "we the best," which we find, more or less fully developed, in all vigorous cultures."

"Lack of leadership and direction in the state has let the one group get control who always gain power in a nation's time of weakness—the Jews."

"[T]he German green uniforms made the place look gay and happy. There were not many Jews to be seen. We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle."

"Architecture is the art of how to waste space."

"The painters have every advantage over us today...Besides being able to tear up their failures—we never can seem to grow ivy fast enough—their materials cost them nothing. They have no committees of laymen telling them what to do. They have no deadlines, no budgets. We are all sickeningly familiar with the final cuts to our plans at the last moment. Why not take out the landscaping, the retaining walls, the colonnades? The building would be just as useful and much cheaper. True, an architect leads a hard life—for an artist."

"I like Houston. It's the last great 19th-century city. Houston has a spirit about it that is truly American, an optimism. People there aren't afraid to try something new."

"[It] was the stupidest thing I ever did. I never forgave myself and I never can atone for it. There's nothing you can do."

"[T]he anti-Semitism, I was in on, and that's the part I'm really ashamed of."

"[He's] the greatest architect of the nineteenth century."

"[A]n American fascist who says he represents Father Coughlin's [weekly paper] Social Justice. None of us can stand the fellow and suspect he is spying on us for the Nazis."

"The space of time in which a great work can now be accomplished is not marvelous. Brain, muscle, materials, and the means of rapid transport are instantly at command. If one has capital and a well-considered plan, the thing does itself. But that which is wonderful and which I can scarcely believe, although I have been in the midst of it, is the noble, artistic result which has come from the work of American artists who have had only a few months' time to prepare those very designs for the great buildings of the Exposition which have actually been executed with little change from the sketches which were presented in February, 1891."

"My subject is a city of the future under a Democratic government. Some very great men, and among them Herbert Spencer and Lord Macaulay, have predicted the downfall of the American democracy. Nevertheless, having firm confidence in our new mixture of bloods, our new environment, our searching publicity and our growing intelligence, I cannot doubt that the American democracy will persist. It takes far greater ability to subvert liberty now than ever before since man’s history began, and so I promise permanence to democratic institutions. To these is vitally related the future of the cities. Plenary democracies can do what we want them to do. They have full power over men, land and goods, and can always make their laws and execute their purposes. Democratic peoples, when they perceive the value of plans to bring convenience and beauty into the hearts of cities can get such plans carried out."

"Sir William is one of the three or four first men in Canada. He is a fair sample of the kind of people who are beginning to think and work for the realization of the new architectural and spiritual era in the great cities of the North American continent. In such men surely this splendid cause has a splendid augury. The most difficult task of all before is that of raising public interest up to the level of definite action. Even this, in my judgement, is not at all impossible. Chicago is moving practically and with determination in the matter and hopes to educate the people to demand delightfulness as a part of life and to devise ways of getting it. Pessimists abound and have always abounded. To them most of the big and splended things are chimerical. Well, in 1850, there was little street paving in the United States, and not much in London or Paris. There were no great sewerage systems, water systems, gas, electric power and light, street cars, sidewalks or other systems, but all these we have now. We do things that would make our forbears think us magicians."

"Our city of the future will be without smoke, dust or gases from manufacturing plants, and the air will therefore be pure. The streets will be as clean as our drawing rooms today. Smoke will be thoroughly consumed, and gases liberated in manufacture will be tanked and burned. Railways will be operated electrically, all building operations will be effectually shut in to prevent the escape of dust, and horses will disappear from the streets. Out of all these things will come not only commercial economy but bodily health and spiritual joy. As the water is generally pure, all that is needed is more economy in its use. Congestion is intolerable in all the great cities in the world and relief is imperative. It will be found in diverting people in other directions and in changing construction so as to carry more traffic . We may expect, in any event, double tunnels under all the business streets and the utmost use of the present street levels by extensive double-decking and many more overhead transportation lines. Some time the rush in the cities may cease, but I see no signs now of its ceasing, and meanwhile crowding must be dealt with. We need systems of passes around the congested districts. We need still more and mainly to diminish the number of people and vehicles using given areas."

"Broadly speaking, the city of the future will not bring to its center any goods not intended for use or consumption therein. At Chicago 66% of the tonnage in and out is not for home use, but for distribution to other places. In view of this fact we designed a general freight scheems for the entire city’s use, with car yards, freight depots and warehouses combined, eight miles from the city, where all trains shall unload and reload. […] I believe that such a course would be economical both for the public service companies and the city government; certainly it would prolong the life of the street paving and eliminate congestion and a constant source of dirty and disorder. Can it be doubted that the city of the future will operate its cental street system, possibly all its streets, in this manner?"

"Do this because of the effect of nature upon citizenship. Other things being equal, a person accustomed to living in nature has a distinct advantage all his life over the purely townbred man. Allure your city denizen to sylvan nature, for it is there he finds the balm his spirt needs. Where a town lies near water, keep all the shore for the people. Neighborhood parks are magnificent both from the standpoint of hygiene and the standpoint of moral purity. Those who grow up before the eyes of the community escape those poisonous practices that lurk in secret places."

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty."

"Less is a bore."

"Main Street is almost alright."

"Perhaps it is the fate of all theorists to view the ripples from their works with mixed feelings. I have sometimes felt more comfortable with my critics than with those who have agreed with me. The latter have often misapplied or exaggerated the ideas and methods of this book to the point of parody. Some have said the ideas are fine but don't go far enough. But most of the thought here was intended to be suggestive rather than dogmatic, and the method of historical analogy can be taken only so far in architectural criticism."

"I like complexity and contradiction in architecture. I do not like the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent architecture nor the precious intricacies of picturesqueness or expressionism."

"But architecture is necessarily complex and contradictory in its very inclusion of the traditional Vitruvian elements of commodity, firmness, and delight. And today the wants of program, structure, mechanical equipment, and expression, even in single buildings in simple contexts, are diverse and conflicting in ways previously unimaginable."

"I am for messy vitality over obvious unity."

"I am for richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning; for the implicit function as well as the explicit function."

"Orthodox Modern architects have tended to recognize complexity insufficiently or inconsistently. In their attempt to break with tradition and start all over again, they idealized the primitive and elementary at the expense of the diverse and the sophisticated."

"Rationalizations for simplification are still current, however, though subtler than the early arguments."

"Nor does complexity deny the valid simplification which is part of the process of analysis, and even a method of achieving complex architecture itself."

"The calculated ambiguity of expression is based on the confusion of experience as reflected in the architectural program."

"The double meanings inherent in the phenomenon both-and can involve metamorphosis as well as contradiction. I have described how the omni-directional spire of the tower of Christ Church, Spitalfields, evolves into a directional pavilion at its base, but a perceptual rather than a formal kind of change in meaning is possible. In equivocal relationships one contradictory meaning usually dominates another, but in complex compositions the relationship is not always constant. This is especially true as the observer moves through or around a building, and by extension through a city: at one moment one meaning can be perceived as dominant; at another moment a different meaning seems paramount."

"The essential purpose of the interiors of buildings is to enclose rather than direct space, and to separate the inside from the outside"

"Architecture as the wall between the inside and the outside becomes the spatial record of this resolution and its drama. And by recognizing the difference between the inside and the outside, architecture opens the door once again to an urbanistic point of view."

"We're in the business of designing buildings for businessmen who put up buildings for other businessmen. (p.185)"

"Unfortunately, buildings are not like drawings. You can't just erase them. (p.275)"

"Architecture reflects society, and this is not a great age. (p.276)"

"God is in the details."

"Less is more."

"I don´t want to be interesting, I want to be good."

"Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space."

"Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins."

"Symmetry is the aesthetics of the stupid."

"Where there's a will, there's a law suit."

"Many are called, but few get up."

"The wages of gin is breath."

"Be held truthful that your lies may count."

"Misery loves company but company does not reciprocate."

"People who love in glass houses should pull down the blinds."

"...Louis Fourteenth Street furniture..."

"...teeth set out by a landscape gardener..."

"Two ideas in his head at once would constitute an unlawful assembly."

"A cow couldn't find its calf in this room."

"He has no manners—he just has customs."

"...talking as though the Standard Oil Company was the smallest thing he owned."

"The son-of-a-bitch would shoot me just to make book on which way I'd fall!"

"How strange it seems that education, in practice, so often means suppression: that instead of leading the mind outward to the light of day it crowds things in upon it that darken and weary it. Yet evidently the true object of education, now as ever, is to develop the capabilities of the head and of the heart."

"Man, by means of his physical power, his mechanical resources, his mental ingenuity, may set things side by side. A composition, literally so called, will result, but not a great art work, not at all an art work in fact, but merely a more or less refined exhibition of brute force exercised upon helpful materials. It may be as a noise in lessening degrees of offensiveness, it can never become a musical tone. Though it shall have ceased to be vulgar in becoming sophistical, it will remain to the end what it was in the beginning: impotent to inspire — dead, absolutely dead. It cannot for a moment be doubted that an art work to be alive, to awaken us to its life, to inspire us sooner or later with its purpose, must indeed be animate with a soul, must have been breathed upon by the spirit and must breathe in turn that spirit. It must stand for the actual, vital first-hand experiences of the one who made it, and must represent his deep-down impression not only of physical nature but more especially and necessarily his understanding of the out-working of that Great Spirit which makes nature so intelligible to us that it ceases to be a phantasm and becomes a sweet, a superb, a convincing Reality."

"The human mind in all countries having gone to the uttermost limit of its own capacity, flushed with its conquests, haughty after its self-assertion upon emerging from the prior dark age, is now nearing a new phase, a phase inherent in the nature and destiny of things. The human mind, like the silk-worm oppressed with the fullness of its own accumulation, has spun about itself gradually and slowly a cocoon that at last has shut out the light of the world from which it drew the substance of its thread. But this darkness has produced the chrysalis, and we within the darkness feel the beginning of our throes. The inevitable change, after centuries upon centuries of preparation, is about to begin."

"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."

"It has, alas, for centuries been taught that the intellect and the emotions were two separate and antagonistic things. This teaching has been firmly believed, cruelly lived up to. How depressing it is to realize that it might have been taught that they are two beautifully congenial and harmonious phases of that single and integral essence that we call the soul. That no nature in which the development of either is wanting can be called a completely rounded nature."

"No complete architecture has yet appeared in the history of the world because men, in this form of art alone, have obstinately sought to express themselves solely in terms either of the head or of the heart. I hold that architectural art, thus far, has failed to reach its highest development, its fullest capability of imagination, of thought and expression, because it has not yet found a way to become truly plastic: it does not yet respond to the poet's touch. That it is today the only art for which the multitudinous rhythms of outward nature, the manifold fluctuations of man's inner being have no significance, no place."

"The schools, having found the object of their long, blind searching, shall teach directness, simplicity, naturalness: they shall protect the young against palpable illusion. They shall teach that, while man once invented a process called composition, Nature has forever brought forth organisms. They shall encourage the love of Nature that wells up in every childish heart, and shall not suppress, shall not stifle, the teeming imagination of the young. They shall teach, as the result of their own bitter experience, that conscious mental effort, that conscious emotionality, are poor mates to breed from, and that true parturition comes of a deep, instinctive, subconscious desire. That true art, springing fresh from Nature, must have in it, to live, much of the glance of an eye, much of the sound of a voice, much of the life of a life. That Nature is strong, generous, comprehensive, fecund, subtile: that in growth and decadence she continually sets forth the drama of man's life. That, thro' the rotating seasons, thro' the procession of the years, thro' the march of the centuries, permeating all, sustaining all, there murmurs the still, small voice of a power that holds us in the hollow of its hand."

"We must now heed the imperative voice of emotion. It demands of us, What is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? And at once we answer, it is lofty. This loftiness is to the artist-nature its thrilling aspect. It is the very open organ-tone in its appeal. It must be in turn the dominant chord in his expression of it, the true excitant of his imagination. It must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line, — that it is the new, the unexpected, the eloquent peroration of most bald, most sinister, most forbidding conditions. The man who designs in this spirit and with the sense of responsibility to the generation he lives in must be no coward, no denier, no bookworm, no dilettante. He must live of his life and for his life in the fullest, most consummate sense. He must realize at once and with the grasp of inspiration that the problem of the tall office building is one of the most stupendous, one of the most magnificent opportunities that the Lord of Nature in His beneficence has ever offered to the proud spirit of man. That this has not been perceived — indeed, has been flatly denied — is an exhibition of human perversity that must give us pause."

"All things in nature have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are, that distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other. Unfailingly in nature these shapes express the inner life, the native quality, of the animal, tree, bird, fish, that they present to us; they are so characteristic, so recognizable, that we say simply, it is "natural" it should be so. Yet the moment we peer beneath this surface of things, the moment we look through the tranquil reflection of ourselves and the clouds above us, down into the clear, fluent, unfathomable depth of nature, how startling is the silence of it, how amazing the flow of life, how absorbing the mystery! Unceasingly the essence of things is taking shape in the matter of things, and this unspeakable process we call birth and growth. Awhile the spirit and the matter fade away together, and it is this that we call decadence, death. These two happenings seem jointed and interdependent, blended into one like a bubble and its iridescence, and they seem borne along upon a slowly moving air. This air is wonderful past all understanding. Yet to the steadfast eye of one standing upon the shore of things, looking chiefly and most lovingly upon that side on which the sun shines and that we feel joyously to be life, the heart is ever gladdened by the beauty, the exquisite spontaneity, with which life seeks and takes on its forms in an accord perfectly responsive to its needs. It seems ever as though the life and the form were absolutely one and inseparable, so adequate is the sense of fulfillment."

"Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies in a twinkling. It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."

"After the long night, and longer twilight, we envisage a dawn-era: an era in which the minor law of tradition shall yield to the greater law of creation, in which the spirit of repression shall fail to repress. Man at last is become emancipated, and now is free to think, to feel, to act free to move toward the goal of the race. Humanitarianism slowly is dissolving the sway of utilitarianism, and an enlight- ened unselfishness is on its way to supersede a benighted rapacity. And all this, as a deep-down force in nature awakens to its strength, animating the growth and evolution of democracy. Under the beneficent sway of this power, the hold of illusion and suppression is passing; the urge of reality is looming in force, extent and penetration, and the individual now is free to become a man, in the highest sense, if so he wills."

"The tyranny alike of church and state has been curbed, and true power is now known to reside where forever it must remain — in the people."

"Truly we are face to face with great things. The mind of youth should be squarely turned to these phenomena. He should be told, as he regards them, how long and bitterly the race has struggled that he may have freedom. His mind should be prepared to cooperate in the far-reaching changes now under way, and which will appear to him in majestic simplicity, breadth and clearness when the sun of democracy shall have arisen but a little higher in the firmament of the race, illumining more steadily and deeply than now the mind and will of the individual, the minds and wills of the millions of men his own mind and his own will."

"An art of expression should begin with childhood, and the lucid use of one's mother tongue should be typical of that art. The sense of reality should be strengthened from the beginning, yet by no means at the cost of those lofty illusions we call patriotism, veneration, love."

"High ideals make a people strong. … decay comes when ideals wane."

"I am not of those who believe in lackadaisical methods. On the contrary, I advocate a vigorous, thorough, exact mental training which shall fit the mind to expand upon and grasp large things and yet properly to perceive in their just relation the significance of small ones to discriminate accurately as to quantity and quality and thus to develop individual judgment, capacity and independence. But at the same time I am of those who believe that gentleness is a greater, surer power than force, and that sympathy is a safer power by far than is intellect. Therefore would I train the individual sympathies as carefully in all their delicate warmth and tenuity as I would develop the mind in alertness, poise and security. Nor am I of those who despise dreamers. For the world would be at the level of zero were it not for its dreamers gone and of today. He who dreamed of democracy, far back in a world of absolutism, was indeed heroic, and we of today awaken to the wonder of his dream."

"He who knows naught of dreaming can, likewise, never attain the heights of power and possibility in persuading the mind to act. He who dreams not creates not. For vapor must arise in the air before the rain can fall. The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer. For in him the dreamer is fortified against destruction by a far-seeing eye, a virile mind, a strong will, a robust courage. And so has perished the kindly dreamer — on the cross or in the garret. A democracy should not let its dreamers perish. They are its life, its guaranty against decay. Thus would I expand the sympathies of youth. Thus would I liberate and discipline all the constructive faculties of the mind and encourage true insight, true expression, real individuality. Thus would I concentrate the powers of will. Thus would I shape character. Thus would I make good citizens. And thus would I lay the foundations for a generation of real architects — real, because true, men, and dreamers in action."

"Is it not Canon Hole who says: "He who would have beautiful roses in his garden, must have beautiful roses in his heart: he must love them well and always"? So, the flowers of your field, in so far as I am gardener, shall come from my heart where they reside in much good will; and my eye and hand shall attend merely to the cultivating, the weeding, the fungous blight, the noxious insect of the air, and the harmful worm below. And so shall your garden grow; from the rich soil of the humanities it will rise up and unfold in beauty in the pure air of the spirit. So shall your thoughts take up the sap of strong and generous impulse, and grow and branch, and run and climb and spread, blooming and fruiting, each after its kind, each flowing toward the fulfillment of its normal and complete desire. Some will so grow as to hug the earth in modest beauty; others will rise, through sunshine and storm, through drought and winter's snows year after year, to tower in the sky; and the birds of the air will nest therein and bring forth their young. Such is the garden of the heart: so oft neglected and despised when fallow. Verily, there needs a gardener, and many gardens."

"The French have a saying: "Time will not consecrate that in which she has been ignored." Bear this admonition ever in mind for it is deeply true. And so, while I say we will neither hasten nor delay, let us not delay. All of which is summed up in the proverbs :"

"The true architectural art, that art toward which I would lead you, rests, not upon scholarship but upon human powers; and, therefore, it is to be tested, not by the fruits of scholarship, but by the touch-stone of humanity."

"Taste is one of the weaker words in our language. It means a little less than something, a little more than nothing; certainly it conveys no suggestion of potency. It savors of accomplishment, in the fashionable sense, not of power to accomplish in the creative sense. It expresses a familiarity with what is au courant among persons of so-called culture, of so-called good form. It is essentially a second-hand word, and can have no place in the working vocabulary of those who demand thought and action at first hand. To say that a thing is tasty or tasteful is, practically, to say nothing at all."

"I have warned you over and over that for every physical effect there is a psychic cause. You see the effect — the cause is just as visible. Can you imagine that Man is here made in the image of his Almighty, when he pollutes that which the Almighty, as it is said, has given to him when he pollutes even himself? This is not democracy, my lad, it is modern American inhumanity. This is not civilization, it is CALIBAN !"

"What are books but folly, and what is an education but an arrant hypocrisy, and what is art but a curse when they touch not the heart and impel it not to action?"

"We are rounding out our absorbing study of Democracy. Thus, turning slowly upon the momentous axis of our theme, are we coming more and more fully into the light of our sun: the refulgent and resplendent and life-giving sun of our art — an art of aspirant democracy! Let us then be on our way; for our sun is climbing ever higher. Let us be adoing; lest it set before we know the glory and the import of its light, and we sink again into the twilight and the gloom from which we have come."

"Among the great modern architects, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Kahn were arguably deists."

"If we think about things having multiple lives, cradle to cradle, we could design things that can go back to either nature or back to industry forever."

"If you look at a tree and think of it as a design assignment, it would be like asking you to make something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy's fuel, makes complex sugars and food, changes colors with the seasons, creates microclimates, and self-replicates."

"There's probably 5000 times more solar energy than the humans will ever need. We could cover our highways with solar collectors to make ribbons of energy, and I think that it's really the largest job creation program in the history of the planet that's in front of us. It's a celebration of the abundance of human creativity combined with the abundance of the natural world."

"I can't imagine something being beautiful at this point in history if it's destroying the planet or causing children to get sick. How can anything be beautiful if it's not ecologically intelligent at this point?"

"In addition to describing the hopeful, nature-inspired design principles that are making industry both prosperous and sustainable, the book itself is a physical symbol of the changes to come. It is printed on a synthetic "paper," made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers, designed to look and feel like top quality paper while also being waterproof and rugged. And the book can be easily recycled in localities with systems to collect polypropylene, like that in yogurt containers. This "treeless" book points the way toward the day when synthetic books, like many other products, can be used, recycled, and used again without losing any material quality—in cradle-to-cradle cycles."

"I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without removing people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs."

"Those who can, build. Those who can't, criticize."

"You can draw any kind of picture you want on a clean slate and indulge your every whim in the wilderness in laying out a New Delhi, Canberra, or Brasilia, but when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax."

"If the end doesn't justify the means, what does?"

"Except for one old man, I’ve been unable to find anyone of technical competence who is for this so-called expressway. And this old man is a cantankerous, stubborn old man who has done many things which may have, in their time, been good for New York City. But I think it is time for this stubborn old man to realize that too many of his dreams turn out to be nightmares for the city. And this board must realize that if it does not kill this stupid example of bad city planning, that the stench of it will haunt them and this great city for many years to come."

"The Power Broker by Robert Caro is the most inspirational book I've ever read on the subject of transportation and urban planning …but I lived in New York City and knew many of the places and people he was talking about. I'm not sure if it would be as inspirational to others. The book won a Pulitzer Prize when it came out in the 1970s. Caro was a newspaper reporter who wanted to write a book about political power– how it was obtained and wielded and what role agencies played in government. In describing the life of Robert Moses, a highway builder, unelected state bureaucrat and creator of the modern “highway department,” Caro was able to describe (in a microcosm) the transportation and political history of America. Another great book is Ivan Illich's “Energy and Equity.”"

"Architecture is the concrete presentment in space of the soul of a people."

"When a man's work is full of life and in harmony with his environment, it becomes a work worth studying."

"After working with oil, pastel, and watercolors, I have intentionally returned to working with graphite. It is the most challenging mode of expression to master"

"I caught a glimpse of sun rays filtering through a window, thus lighting up a portion of this magnificent building. I was racing against the sun, desperately trying to finish my sketch before the light disappeared. I knew I had only an hour and a half before sunset."

"After I finished my books, I felt I had to do another one and I thought that if I were to choose a subject, it had to be mosques."

"My wife is a painter, and a very good one... and we’ve been working together for, oh, twelve years now, I guess...and at first I used to help and criticize things she was doing, and then she would help and criticize things I was doing, and we would... pitch in and do all the jiggering for each other and get it as people do... and then, gradually, things begin to sort of, you know, entropy... things began to get shuffled, and pretty soon you didn’t know, sort of, where one started and the other ended, and anything that we’ve looked at or talked about here, you know, I say that I’m doing it, but actually, she’s doing it just as much as I am, only she sort of goes under the same corporate type name..."

"I have never been forced to accept compromises but I have willingly accepted constraints."

"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects... the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."

"The details are not the details. These make the design."

"One could describe Design as a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose."

"[Design is] an expression of purpose. It may, if it is good enough, later be judged as art."

"Design may be a solution to some industrial problems."

"Q: Does the creation of Design admit constraint? Design depends largely on constraints. Q: What constraints? The sum of all constraints. Here is one of the few effective keys to the Design problem: the ability of the Designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. Constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time, and so forth. Each problem has its own peculiar list."

"Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world."

"Designers should only innovate as a last resort."

"I am obsessed with architecture. It is true, I am restless, trying to find myself as an architect, and how best to contribute in this world filled with contradiction, disparity, and inequality, even passion and opportunity."

"I approach each building as a sculptural object, a spatial container, a space with light and air, a response to context and appropriateness of feeling and spirit. To this container, this sculpture, the user brings his baggage, his program, and interacts with it to accommodate his needs. If he can't do that, I've failed."

"Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness."

"Life is chaotic, dangerous, and surprising. Buildings should reflect that."

"I get that a lot because I've hung around with a lot of artists and I'm very close to a lot of them. I'm very involved in their work; I think a lot of my ideas have grown out of it, and that there's been some give and take."

"[ Brancusi ] has had more influence on my work than most architects."

"I think my best skill as an architect is the achievement of hand-to-eye coordination. I am able to transfer a sketch into a model into the building."

"I do think democracy has produced chaos, especially visual. A lot of people don't like it and yearn for nineteenth-century images, forgetting that the politics of those images were different than the democracy we love."

"We look backward at history and tradition to go forward; we can also look downward to go upward. And withholding judgement may be used as a tool to make later judgement more sensitive. This is a way of learning from everything."

"Architects shouldn't play God."

"Most professional women can recount ‘horror stories’ about discrimination they have suffered during their careers. My stories include social trivia as well as grand trauma. But some less common forms of discrimination came my way when, in mid-career, I married a colleague and we joined our professional lives just as fame (though not fortune) hit him. I watched as he was manufactured into an architectural guru before my eyes and, to some extent, on the basis of our joint work and the work of our firm."

"The social trivia (what Africans call petty apartheid) continue too: ‘wives’ dinners’ (‘We’ll just let the architects meet together, my dear’); job interviews where the presence of ‘the architect’s wife’ distressed the board; dinners I must not attend because an influential member of the client group wants ‘the architect’ as her date; Italian journalists who ignore Bob’s request that they address me because I understand more Italian than he does; the tunnel vision of students toward Bob; the ‘so you’re the architect!’ to Bob, and the wellmeant ‘so you’re an architect too?’ to me."

"I now receive inquiries of interest for deanships and departmental chairs several times a year. I find myself on committees where I am the only woman and there is one black man. We two tokens greet each other wryly. I am frequently invited to lecture at architecture schools, ‘to be a role model for our girls.’ I am happy to do this for their young women but I would rather be asked purely because my work is interesting."

"Faced with unmeasurables, people steer their way by magic. Before the invention of navigational instruments, a lady was carved on the prow of the boat to help sailors cross the ocean; and architects, grappling with the intangibles of design, select a guru whose work gives them personal help in areas where there are few rules to follow. The guru, as architectural father figure, is subject to intense hate and love; either way, the relationship is personal, it can only be a one-to-one affair. This accounts for the intensely ad hominem stance of some of ‘Venturi’s’ critics. If the attribution were correct the tone would be more even, as one cannot easily wax emotional over several people. I suspect, too, that for male architects the guru must be male. There can be no Mom and Pop gurus in architecture. The architectural prima donnas are all male."

"Over the years, it has slowly dawned on me that the people who cause my painful experiences are ignorant and crude. They are the critics who have not read enough and the clients who do not know why they have come to us. I have been helped to realise this by noticing that the scholars whose work we most respect, the clients whose projects intrigue us, and the patrons whose friendship inspires us, have no problem understanding my role. They are the sophisticates. Partly through them I gain heart and realise that, over the last twenty years, I have managed to do my work and, despite some sliding, to achieve my own self-respect."

"From time to time a square has been opened here, a park there, a street cut through in one place or widened in another, but these improvements have been entirely local in their effect, and have failed to change the general appearance of the city. Even the greatest of all these changes, the laying out of Central Park, was unfortunate, to say the least, for it serves to aggravate one of the worst features of the original plan, viz., the failure to provide a central artery of communication worthy of the coming city."

"New York ought to have such an avenue like the Champs Elysées of Paris, Unter den Linden of Berlin, or the Ring Strasse of Vienna, but more ample than any of them; for here, of all places, owing to the shape of the island, there is the most need of such a thing."

"The object of this work is to improve the design and construction of small houses while reducing their cost."

"The most perfectly constructed object in nature, and also the most beautiful object in nature, is the human form as it approaches perfection. This, then, is the criterion of construction as it is of design. The study of its beauties is the veritable key to art..."

"In the human form, as nature tries to make it, every feature is useful and every feature is beautiful. Each member is perfectly adapted to the function it has to perform; nothing is superfluous, yet the whole and every part is supremely decorative."

"It is clearly apparent that in building the best results should accrue in proportion as every element in the structure is fitted both to the function it has to perform and the materials of which it is made. It follows from this that disguise and complication are hindrances, both to good construction and good design, and as complication and disguise are expensive and wasteful, that the interests of good art and true economy run on parallel lines."

"It is hard to change long-established building habits; such habits sometimes endure for ages in certain localities with little or no change. It is, however, easy for new communities to acquire bad building habits."

"When the necessity for shelter is great and the means for obtaining it scant, flimsy and makeshift methods of building find ready acceptance; and once introduced are hard to eradicate. Such habits, formed here in early times, still influence construction; as abundantly proved by our inordinate fire loss..."

"While it is not hard to suggest improvements on common methods of design and construction, it is very hard to introduce them."

"Unless he is prepared to try his new theories and processes on himself, as has been done here, there is little likelihood that he will ever see them applied, for he will find that, of all people, builders are most set in their ways and hardest to move from their accustomed ruts."

"These houses are intended to have stone walls. ...The fact that a stone house is better in many ways than a wooden one, and also more economical in the long run has, for the most part, been overlooked... The conditions are... ripe for a change from wood to stone or other incombustible material, but it will doubtless come about slowly."

"Low walls are much less expensive to build than high ones... it is possible to use forms without the usual waste of lumber... when waste is avoided, forms greatly reduce the cost of stonework... much can be saved in the construction of foundations by methods described..."

"The most economical way of obtaining good results is to apply the great, fundamental principles of art; and depend on them for beauty, rather than upon the use of either applied ornament or more expensive materials... much better results are likely to accrue from truth than falsehood, and from architectural [rather] than archaeological methods."

"Beauty is largely dependent on fitness, and fitting methods are usually the most convenient and economical; therein, indeed, to a great extent, lies their very fitness."

"Economy in building consists in the aggregate of a great number of savings, which when considered separately may seem trivial, but when combined are important. The list of those here provided for... may be divided into classes as follows:"

"1st. Saving of time, trouble, and money in the preparation of plans by the module system, and the standardization of parts and methods."

"2d. Saving space: (a) By the utilization of the large volume of space contained in the slopes of roofs... (b) by the reduction of floor thickness... (c) by the utilization of space (as on shipboard) for lockers, cupboards, closets, etc... (d) by the use of thin partitions... and (e) by elimination of corridors... so that the least possible area may be required for communication."

"3d. Saving of materials: (a) By greatly reducing the average height of walls... and reduction of floor thicknesses... (b) by reducing the size and cost of foundations... (c) by the elimination of the cellar... (d) by the omission of much of the ground-floor beams and wooden underflooring... (e) by the elimination of all wooden studs and lath from partitions... (f) by the elimination of practically all trim, casing, base-boards, and their moldings... (g) by the omission of framing and casing of dormers... (h) by the omission of most of the plastering... (i) by the use of splayed jambs which also improves light... (j) by the use of a special type of casement window... (k) by the omission of applied ornament, reliance for beauty depending on other means... (l) by greater economy in making and using forms... (m) by the omission of stone sills... (n) by the omission of raised verandah floors, steps, balustrades, etc... (o) in the shortening of all stairs, pipes, ducts, drains, and wires... (p) in the avoidance of waste by designing for the use of standard lengths and sizes of material without cutting, as for beams, glass, etc., which the module system of planning makes easy... (q) in the avoidance of things requiring paint, and the use of wax for the finish of interior woodwork... (r) in the reduction of the size of sleepers for flooring... (s) in the more economical use of concrete... (t) in the saving of about one-half the piping in the installation of plumbing drainage... (u) in the elimination of butts and screws for the hanging of windows and doors; and (v) by the omission of fly-screens, the netting being directly applied to the window-frames."

"4th. Savings in labor: (a) By the lowness of the walls... (b) in the use of unskilled labor in building walls, by backing the face stones with concrete, and placing the face stones in the forms dry without the use of mortar, except for pointing... (c) in the simplification of woodwork, especially in the hanging of windows and doors, and in the setting of trim... (d) in the application of hardware, chiefly on account of the kind of hinges used... (e) in the standardization of parts and the use of similar members... (f) by cutting about one-half the labor in the installation of plumbing drainage... and (g) by the greater use of machine and shop work, which the exposed structural members permit of."

"5th. Savings by the use of more economical devices, materials, and methods: (a) in the matter of roof-covering... (b) in heating and plumbing drainage... (c) in hardware... (d) in use of tiling... (e) in the use of cement... (f) in the matter of damp-proofing... (g) in the method of flashing... (h) in the preparation of floors for tiling... (i)in the construction of bearing partitions... (j) in the arrangement of screens and shades... (k) in the avoidance of excavation and grading by adapting the building to the conformation of the land... (l) in the more economical use of land by the European method of placing the buildings at the side of the road... (m) in furring... and (n) in the standardization of methods by which the work of construction becomes simply a matter of routine in which each mechanic can perform his part without special direction."

"The best art, and the only art which will ever lead to great results, must have for its basis the interpretation of beauty in nature."

"When the true principles of design are forgotten; when, in art, the bizarre and novel is the aim rather than the beautiful; when complication and mystery take the place of what should be as simple and clear as the atmosphere, design runs amuck, and becomes so helplessly involved in difficulties that such manifestations as cubism, impressionism, futurism, and art nouveau shoe their ugly heads and pose as art."

"Why can there not be a new art founded on the only principle which can produce great art—the principle that art is the interpretation or extraction of the essence of beauty in nature, and all else is secondary?"

"The system of building, described in this work, is intended for repetition. It would hardly pay to adopt it in its entirety for a single house if the matter were to end there. Where the processes and apparatus is used, over and over again, great economy should result; but for a single building, the trouble and expense of introducing so many new or unusual features and methods, might well offset the benefits which should accrue under more favorable conditions. Standardization both of parts and workmanship plays a great part in the economies obtained and standardization implies quantity."

"Greek art was extremely simple and direct; both in design and construction the Greek mind abhorred complicaton."

"The Greeks designed by a modulus of fixed measure, and that modulus, for the Doric order, was the distance between centers of the triglyphs. ...The triglyphs stand in the frieze, at the corners of the building and at regular intervals at all sides of it; between then are panels, called metopæ, which are always square. The distance between the triglyphs, therefore, determines the height of the frieze. The height of the frieze determines that of the architrave, which is the same. The distance between the triglyphs also determines the spacing of the columns, for except at the corners of the building the center of each column coincides with that of every second triglyph. Upon the spacing of the triglyphs, therefore, depend absolutely the proportions of plan and order. That spacing constitutes a fixed modulus for the entire design which never varies in its application and is, in fact, the harmonic scale of the monument."

"To the Greek harmony was of supreme importance, and if the triglyphs represented the harmonic scale... their meaning and use is abundantly explained. ...The universal admiration which Greek proportions have always excited proves that the method of obtaining them was correct."

"It was only within comparatively recent times that several refinements in Greek architecture... such as the slight entasis of the columns, the greater size of the corner columns, and the convex curve of the stylobate were discovered."

"For more than two thousand years architectural design by the use of a modulus, except in the case of the classic orders, had been a lost art."

"Certain combinations of dimensions produce harmonious results, but since the time of the ancient Greeks no system of design, consistently base on that knowledge, has been formulated."

"When, in architecture, one uses a fixed unit and combinations of it, to produce harmony, the effect should be most striking and apparent... as it is in music by the measured beat and in poetry by the cadence and rhythm."

"As in poetry and music, even the unskilled ear may be offended by a mistake in measure, without discerning the cause, may not also a mistake in the harmony of dimensions unconsciously offend us in design?"

"We here have... an architectural discovery which may prove of inestimable value to future art. ...Like fire, it is a good servant but a bad master. The danger is that it may lead to a cramped and mechanical design. One may easily become a slave to the module, and do things because of it which his taste or reason would not otherwise commend. ...How can the danger be avoided and the benefits secured?"

"A Greek architect of the great epoch would no more have thought of omitting the mark of the harmonic scale of proportion, on which the design was based, than would the composer of music think of omitting the harmonic scale of his composition."

"The Greeks were men of sense; if they used the system they did so for a purpose, as artists rather than mathematicians and imperceptible irregularities could not affect that purpose."

"The Parthenon stands as a reproach to the rest of the world. May not this be because the rest of the world has forgotten, or never knew, the principles which made the Parthenon possible and of which harmony of proportion... was one?"

"There have always seemed to the writer sound reasons for using the module system in architectural design."

"One of the most ancient and inexpensive ways of obtaining shelter, was to utilize the space under sloping roof rafters. Indian wigwams have no other kind. Where civilization is slightly more advanced, low stone walls are built upon which the feet of the rafters rest."

"Disadvantages... can be entirely removed by... the ridge-dormer. By its use space in the roof, otherwise of little value, becomes the most desirable. Instead of being gloomy, stuffy and hot, the dormers render it perfectly ventilated, light at all times, and cool in hot weather. In frame buildings, it is not so easy, because there must be tie beams... to withstand the thrust of the roof. ...Where low stone walls are used... the strength of the walls is sufficient to withstand the thrust..."

"The ridge-dormers are placed in pairs, at the very apex of the roof. They are opened and closed only once a year—in the spring and fall respectively; and are so arranged that no rain can enter. ...if the air in the room is warmer than the outer air, it must rise and escape through the ridge-dormers. ...If, during a heated spell, the lower windows and and doors are carefully kept shut, the air inside may be maintained several degrees cooler than the outer air. ...the coolest air of the twenty-four hours will find its way through them, taking the place of the warmer air which escapes. ...cooler air can be trapped in the house and held there during the day. ...hot air, being lighter, does not descend into cool air."

"Ridge-dormers have many other advantages. In winter, when closed... it is nature's own method of lighting. Ridge-dormers greatly reduce the height of the building; because bringing into use space heretofore wasted, the eaves may be correspondingly lowered."

"The chief difficulty in designing small houses is to avoid an excessive appearance of height. ...the ridge-dormer or its equivalent, the ridge skylight, would open a whole new field of opportunity..."

"Many women do not like to sleep on the ground floor, being afraid to leave their windows open at night. With ridge-dormers standing open, the lower windows may be kept closed and locked, while the room will be perfectly ventilated without them."

"Dormers may easily lose, in winter, the credit they gained in summer. ...If, however, they are properly made and securely closed in cold weather, this will not happen."

"Instead of the dormers, skylights... are easier to make and operate, need no double sash, cost less, and some may prefer their appearance."

"One of the best ways to economize in building is to economize on ugliness. ...Nothing can be greater service in avoiding ugliness than a knowledge of the principles of design."

"If the chief rules of good design were understood by the masses as they might be, nothing would do more to promote beauty, improve workmanship, add to the value of manufactures, and in many other ways further the general welfare and prosperity of the country. They are simple, easy to acquire, and should be taught with the alphabet."

"When one understands the principles of design, his taste will have something more solid as a basis than mere whim or fancy, which in the untutored is more likely to be bad than good. Acquainted with the rules of good design he will not accept articles made in defiance of them."

"How few people, even among the supposedly well educated, can give an intelligent explanation of the qualities of a design! ...the essential ones ...are necessary in order that the design may be worthy to be classed at all as a work of art. Among the essential qualities are reason, unity, harmony, clarity, and variety. Among the desirable qualities are imagination, interest, refinement, simplicity, dignity, and style."

"In the human figure as it approaches perfection... is contained the sure guide for the determination of all true principles of design. ...it was because the ancient Greeks... realized this truth that they excelled all others in art."

"Reason...to suppose any production, worthy to be called a work of art, can be made without its use is foolish. ...By the use of reason many mistakes in design may be avoided and many counterfeits of art readily detected....Beauty alone is an excellent reason for many things, but when a design is in direct conflict with common sense it cannot be a work of art."

"Reason requires all things to have a use and be appropriate and fitted to the purpose for which they are used."

"Unity. ...Unity of purpose is shown by continuity, or the proper relationship of the parts with each other, and with the whole as one sees it best expressed in the human form. Unity of mass is obtained by giving predominance of mass to some one feature..."

"Harmony. ...it is all embracing and should reign throughout—harmony in purpose, harmony in dimensions, harmony in form and harmony in color. In good design discord can have no place. ...all may unite to form a complete, harmonious, and well-rounded composition ..."

"Clarity or Decision. ...without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability... incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear... it should be frank, as the French say."

"Variety. ...Movement, contrast, and accent all contribute to variety... the spice of life... Monotony and dryness are lurking enemies which may be vanquished by variety."

"The qualities called personal... and the ability to impart them, in greater or less degree, is the gage of genius in art."

"Imagination... implies originality. It results in a reflection... of the working mind of the designer. ...Imagination may be called the dynamic force in art. ...It is the quality which distinguishes the artistic from the photographic representation of nature."

"Interest. ...a design to be great must have great interest. ...the most potent of all ways to impart interest is to endow the design with beauty of form, and... the one which makes the strongest appeal to human interest and admiration is physical beauty in human shape."

"Refinement. While the possession of this quality is due, in the first instance, to education, it is also largely a matter of temperament."

"Simplicity and Dignity are so nearly related that they may be considered together. ...A quiet air of reserved power is characteristic of dignity, and that is best obtained by simple means and the absence of apparent effort. Simplicity is the mark of genius. The giant in art does his work easily, without straining and without affectation; his ways are direct and to the point."

"A master in art need not go into the highways and byways for affects; he knows the straight course and follows it."

"With dignity and simplicity come repose... the natural state of one at home in his surroundings and sure of his ground. Repose is a distinguished characteristic of Greek art."

"Style... the very hall-mark of great art... there is little use in trying to define style."

"Inevitably Le Corbusier's large-scale housing was associated with the more visionary aspects of his planning and deemed unacceptable to pragmatic housing reformers. That association formed a sixth barrier. On one hand, the Radiant City, like his urban visions of the 1920s, was linked to a tradition of utopian planning that thrived in America during the 1920s and early 1930s. Such projects and proposals by Raymond Hood, Richard Neutra, Kocher and Ziegler, Wallace Harrison, Hugh Ferriss, Harvey Wiley Corbett, Ernest Flagg, and others enjoyed wide circulation. On the other hand, what separated the Radiant City (and Le Corbusier's projects of the 1920s) from many of its American visionary counterparts was his radical treatment of urban infrastructure and his advocacy of cooperative ownership, thus mandating not only material changes in the structure of the city but also political changes in a free-market economy that historically promoted individual property rights."

"Few architects tried to emulate this honest and enthusiastic attempt to use the concrete itself as a decorative feature, and the more reinforced concrete frame structures became common, the more customary it was to hide the skeleton within a covering of brick... In 1905 Ernest Flagg, one of the most brilliant Beaux-Arts trained American architects of the day, had complained bitterly when a thirty per cent rise in building costs obliged him to substitute a reinforced concrete skeleton for the masonry construction of the at Annapolis, carefully modeled on the Dome of the Invalides in Paris."

"Ernest Flagg, the renowned twentieth-century architect, built the "new" Naval Academy in the early 1900s and infused a sense of grandeur into the Yard—physical structures befitting the training ground for the world's preeminent Navy. ...It is now recognized as Flagg's most monumental accomplishment."

"In 1908 the architect Ernest Flagg proposed that street facades should be limited to 100 feet and towers should be permitted to rise to an unlimited height above them so long as they occupied no more than twenty-five percent of the site, a provision that was eventually adopted by the city code. Flagg wanted to "Parisianize" New York with even cornice lines yet allow for a "diadem of towers"; his own Singer Building (1908) shows what he meant."

"On the one hand, the great focal points and the main arteries of traffic speak of the dignity of government and the easy movement of commerce. But we need also the more intimate side of city planning, the by ways with their little shops, the occasional drinking fountain at a street corner, the glimpse of some secluded garden through a half-open gate."

"A truly great architecture grew up in Mexico after the time of the Conquest of Cortez. It was probably not on account of any lack desire on the part of the early Fathers that architecture was not transplanted to California in the days of the Missions. It is apparent their simple crude touches of ornament, that Padres were trying to simulate the richness of the churches of Mexico City and Puebla—they were pitifully limited, however, not only in wealth but also in the skill of the workmen had at hand."

"The Oriental heritage, due to the long sojourn of the Moors in Spain, had a profound influence on the taste of the people. From these Oriental invaders the Spaniards derived the great surfaces of blank wall with occasional spots of luxuriant ornament that characterize nearly all their work. From them also comes the love of bright color shown in the use of polychrome tiles and rich fabrics and in the painting and gilding of sculpture and ornamental motives. While the large constructive forms, particularly vaults and domes, are frankly and simply expressed, the ornament as in the work of the Orient, is rather an incrustation, a mere surface decoration, than a pretense at logical construction."

"Depraved these styles are called, the one with its ever broken and twisted mouldings, the other with its rich crowded carving, and depraved we may count them, if we are of the school that thinks the purpose of architectural ornament is always to state some fact of construction. The Mexican architects and their workmen were certainly not of this school. They broke their mouldings, turned and curved them and multiplied their ornament for the pure joy it gave them to see the sparkle of the sunlight on their white walls."

"Laid out in 1928 by the planners Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, Radburn was intended to showcase the concept of a garden city in America. Though only partially completed due to bankruptcy of the development corporation, Radburn has been championed as a model for building communities in green, landscaped settings. The basic components of the Radburn approach are superblocks, community parks and facilities, vehicular networks, and pedestrian paths."

"In the early 1920s, Stein set out on his own as an architect and was drawn into a circle of intellectuals who directed their energies toward regional planning and affordable housing. Among his associates were Benton MacKaye, who fathered the Appalachian Trail, the critic Lewis Mumford, and the architect Henry Wright. These four men studied Ebenezer Howard's English Garden Cities at Letchworth and Welwyn, seeking to adapt the concepts to America. Stein and Wright—along with real estate developer Alexander Bing and others—demonstrated these ideas at Sunnyside Gardens (1924) in Queens, New York."

"The planning/architecture team of Henry Wright Sr. and Clarence S. Stein did much to influence the development of urbanism in this country. Their example would have been of greater impact if the Depression had not occurred shortly after the birth of Radburn, their foremost work. Influenced by... the Garden City movement... Wright and Stein fought valiantly—generally against municipal and corporate indifference—to make large scale planning an essential ingredient of urban expansion."

"Books on model suberbs of the 1920s expressed great enthusiasm. The best survey is Clarence S. Stein, Toward New Towns for America (New York, 1973)"

"No critic as yet comprehends entirely why our houses are so poorly constructed, why they look so abominable, why they cost so much for construction and for maintenance, and why they are so uncomfortable."

"This process has suggested some workable alternatives as solutions to personal housing needs. Here they are in the form of seven axioms... 1. When building your home, pay as you go. 2. Supply your own labor. 3. Build according to your best judgement. 4. Use native materials whenever possible. 5. Design and plan your own home. 6. Use minimum but quality grade hand tools. 7. Assume responsibility for your building construction."

"When replacement or repair is required due either to accident or deterioration by age, the materials are readily at hand, and the householder himself can do the work."

"It is a rarity of the first order when the dean of an architectural college takes it upon himself to build houses comprised of woven split bamboo placed between two layers of treated clay. These readily available materials were artfully used by Professor Stein in his creation of two demonstration low-cost homes."

"The mere technical problems of building a home are insignificant when compared to an understanding and an interpretation of one's innermost feelings and thoughts concerning his shelter needs."

"For every serious attempt to achieve integration of house to site you will find a thousand houses peppering the landscape and clearly demonstrating the builder's total disregard for even the most basic considerations of sun, wind, and view."

"A few centuries ago... the indigenous and often primitive architectural forms of that time had become suited to local climate through a long process of trial and error."

"Cooling by evaporation of water or by fans and warming by heaters and fireplaces are artificial aids... From a practical, economic, or aesthetic point of view it makes much more sense to develop, where possible, constructional features for warming or cooling the owner-built home."

"Enough is known today about natural ventilation for summer cooling to warrant the entire replacement of artificial air-conditioning devices. ...prevailing breezes enter small, louvered openings at the lower section... circulate across the "living zone," rise and then exit through larger, higher openings in the opposite wall."

"Most houses grossly violate the basic principles of natural summer cooling and sound winter heating."

"A totally new concept of building design evolves from the application of basic aerodynamic phenomenon. Vetillation by installation of windows becomes obsolete... Air can be brought into the building from the roof or from under the floor. Wind scoops can be designed to assist the flow of air from practically any angle."

"It must have been in Iran that Frank Lloyd Wright got his brilliant idea for cooling a house... During the summer months, the sunken fireplace hearth was filled with water. Down-draft air movement from the chimney circulates over this pool to cool... This unusual fireplace has a summer-cooling as well as winter-heating function."

"The Arab's tent... actually consists of two separate tents. The outer tent is white and acts as a heat-reflective layer. The lower-inner tent additionally protects... by providing a blanket of moving air between the two tent layers. ...this tent system also illustrates the two, most basic principles of summer cooling: reflective insulation and ventilation. ...One system must supplement and reinforce the other."

"Cooling systems... need only supply a drop of from 10 to 20 degrees below that of the outside temperature. ...greater cooling differentials... are a real injury to health."

"It costs three to five times as much to remove a BTU of heat from a house in the summer as it does to add one BTU of heat in the winter."

"Bedroom insulation is unnecessary and restrictive of optimum summer sleeping comfort."

"A perfectly flat roof permits up to 50 percent more heat gain that a pitched roof... This illustrates the failure of the flat-roof construction to get natural, hot air flow out from under the eaves."

"Ceiling insulation is... preferable to roof-top insulation."

"As much as 70 percent of the sun's heat rays can be reflected from one's house by the installation of a white or light-colored roof."

"About one-fifth of all the heat that enters the average house comes through windows. ...external shading is by far the most efficient method for controlling interior heat build-up. The air-wash between the shading screen and the window is also very effective. The screen should have a light-colored finish... Insulation boards placed next to the window pane at night, will help prevent heat losses through glazed openings. Overhangs and horizontal sunshades placed above south-facing windows serve effectively as heat reducers."

"Trellises for leafy vines, which will lose their foilage in the fall, should be set up over southern windows so that sunlight will penetrate into the house through the winter months."

"If no attempt is made to control excessive heat loss through glass... a solar house may require as much as 20 percent more fuel than an orthodox house during December and January... Wendell Thomas recognized and solved this problem... by burying the house in the ground, except for the south and east window areas. ...at night... windows are covered with from inside by insulation boards and drapes..."

"Glass... is not required for the collection of solar heat. The National Physical Laboratory of Israel... has perfected a highly polished metal surface coated with a molecular-thin black layer of special paint, which absorbs more than 90 percent sunlight. The polished metal radiates very little of the heat it receives. ...A south-facing wall fitted out with these plates would really "drink in" solar heat, windows, or no windows."

"A wind of only 15 mph may increase the heat loss from a window surface by 47 percent or from a concrete wall by 34 percent. Therefore, heating plans have a critical relationship with windbreaks and with wind baffles."

"Convected air heating requires 70° air temperatures, whereas 65° are required using a radiative means of heating. The result is a 30% savings in fuel consumption."

"Every house needs a warming spot where persons coming in from the outside chill can, if for no other reason, warm hands and hearts."

"In cold climates it will cost only half as much to heat a well insulated building as it will cost to heat a poorly insulated one. ... the annual fuel saving will amortize in two years the addition cost expense of the insulation!"

"The design of a house around a massive, central fireplace has, somehow, always felt right to this writer-builder."

"As far back as 1624... Louis Savot invented the first heat-circulating fireplace. His unit was installed in the Louvre, Paris, and became the prototype for Ben Franklin's 1742 Pennsylvania stove. The 1624 French fireplace achieved 30 to 45 percent more efficiency than do most American tract home fireplaces of today! Savot surrounded the grate of his creation with a metal chamber, which had warm air outlets above the fire opening. He also supplied the fire with air from under the floor. Thus, room drafts were reduced and combustion efficiency was further improved. Few people are aware that practically all of the technical features of Franklin's Pennsylvania stove were copied from earlier inventors."

"The most noteworthy development of the open fireplace took place in 1796, when Englishman Count Rumford published his comprehensive essay, "Chimney Fireplaces." ...the inclined fireback ...increased fireplace efficiency by providing an area of greater radiation. For the purpose of breaking up the current of smoke in the event of chimney down draft, the back smoke shelf of Rumford's improved fireplace ended abruptly—a practice strictly adhered to by fireplace masons to this day."

"In course sand it may be better to drive a well. Driven wells are usually 2 inches in diameter and less than 30 feet deep. If driving conditions are good, you can drive a 4-inch casing as deep as 50 feet. A driving tool consists of a drive point connected to the lower end of sections or pipe."

"Heavy, clayey soils hold more water with less nutrient-leaching. The structural aggregates of heavy soils retain nutrients but allow water to drain around them. Light soils are extremely sensitive to excess water."

"An adequately designed spillway is critical to pond management. The purpose of the spillway is to carry surplus water from the pond, away from the face of the dam. It may consist of a mechanical control, such as an exit pipe installed in the base of the dam where it will empty below the dam site."

"In medieval Europe, monks grew vegetables, herbs, flowers, berries, and fruit trees together for mutual benefit. You should plan plant populations relative to the root level each species occupies in the soil relative to the feeding capacity of each species."

"A mixture of damp peat moss and loamy soil spread around the roots is far better than fertilizer in any form. Do not saturate the hole in which a tree is to be planted with water."

"Grafting is, in effect, the healing of two common wounds. Commercial nurseries charge high prices for grafted stock, and the public bears the cost..."

"Pit Greenhouses... greenhouse plants... need additional sources of carbon dioxide."

"A trailer can virtually double the loading capacity of a sturdy truck—another good reason for beefing up the power train."

"The first principle of good barn design is flexibility of space."

"Aquaculture is an important aspect of homestead polyculture, for it facilitates the management of a variety of crops in a single production area."

"You can make any whole and dried bean, pea, or grain sprout in several days, without purchasing a seed sprouter to do the job. Use the common, wide-mouthed quart canning jar..."

"An important feature of our barrel stove was its simplicity. We designed it so that any homesteader, even one only partially skilled in metalworking, could build the entire unit in a welder-equipped workshop. Our stove's low cost and multiuse features contributed to its modest success."

"Around 1800 American-born, expatriate Benjamin Rumford discovered that once heated, a firebox built of masonry materials did not cool the fire. Instead, it slowly built up the heat that kept the fuel in the firebox burning hotly. He joined the growing debate between builders of metal and masonry stoves, contributing considerable support to the latter."

"Heat from a centrally located masonry stove is transferred to all parts of the living space by steady radiation. Therefore, stove operating temperatures never fluctuate erratically, causing harmful air-turbulance. This makes for a more healthful indoor climate."

"It is no mystery that clay cook pots perform as they do or that clay ovens are considered healthy devices for us to use. In prehistoric times, baking ovens were built of clay and sand. Later these stoves were placed inside shelters where they could deliver some of their accumulated heat to the household..."

"It is claimed that the Russian stove is seldom plagued with creosote build-up. If this is so, the reason may have more to do with the stove's operation than with its large ducts. Any masonry stove operates best when its fire is hot, and when fuel burns rapidly in a single, intense conflagration."

"The concrete shell of this stove would surely crack if its strength were not reinforced with steel rod, wire fabric, or barbed wire. The latter is our choice. We laid continuous strands of barbed wire between the rows of slip form masonry. The thermal expansion rate of concrete is the same as steel up to a temperature comparable to boiling water... Beyond that, steel expands at a faster rate than concrete. At a temperature of about 500 degrees F., the bond between the concrete and steel is destroyed... The type of aggregate in the mix is primarily responsible for this kind of failure."

"Supplies of wood fuel may be a byproduct of thinning, pruning, and harvesting homestead tree crops. These trees also provide the homestead with groundwater [for natural evaporative cooling and fruit], with protection from the sun, wind, and erosion, and with fodder, fruit, and nuts for animal and human consumption. Tree crops also furnish shelter and forage for the wild birds..."

"Mr. Cram’s thesis is that we do not behave like human beings because the great majority of us, the masses of mankind, are not human beings. We have all along assumed that the zoological classification of man is also a competent psychical classification; that all creatures having the physical attributes which put them in the category Homo sapiens also have the psychical attributes which put them in the category of human beings; and this, Mr. Cram says, is wholly unwarranted and an error of the first magnitude. Consequently we have all along been putting expectation upon the masses of Homo sapiens which they are utterly incapable of meeting. … My change of philosophical base had one curious and wholly unforeseen effect, though it followed logically enough. Since then I have found myself quite unable either to hate anybody or to lose patience with anybody. … My change of base brought me into a much more philosophical temper. … One can hate human beings, at least I could,—I hated a lot of them when that is what I thought they were,—but one can’t hate the sub-human creatures or be contemptuous of them, wish them ill, regard them unkindly. If an animal is treacherous, you avoid him but can’t hate him, for that is the way he is. … The mass-men who are princes, presidents, politicians, legislators, can no more transcend their psychical capacities than any wolf, fox or polecat in the land."

"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity. Freedom of expression, for me, consists in moving within a measured range that I assign to each of my undertakings. How instructive it is to remember Leonardo da Vinci's counsel that "strength is born of constraint and dies from freedom.""

"Architects by design investigate the play of volumes in light, explore the mysteries of movement in space, examine the measure that is scale and proportion, and above all, they search for that special quality that is the spirit of the place as no building exists alone. The practice of architecture is a collective enterprise, with many individuals of various disciplines and talents working closely together. And from the commissioning to the completion of a project, there are also the many individuals for whom architects work, whose contribution to quality is frequently as crucial as that of the architect. So I accept this prize for all who have worked with me in this unique undertaking. Let us all be attentive to new ideas, to advancing means, to dawning needs, to impetuses of change so that we may achieve, beyond architectural originality, a harmony of spirit in the service of man."

"For me the important distinction is between a stylistic approach to the design; and an analytical approach giving the process of due consideration to time, place, and purpose ... My analytical approach requires a full understanding of the three essential elements ... to arrive at an ideal balance among them."

"Bureaucracy is killing the creativity in this country. All the forms you have to fill out now don't leave any room for imagination."

"Man is endowed with choice, but the world as he has made it is a perfect example of what not to do. Man's basic needs are food, shelter, clothing, and procreation. The stock market, cosmetics, religious games, war games, the myth of teaching, and political games are the lack of these."

"Choosing a past helps us to construct a future."

"If we examine the feelings that accompany daily life, we find that historic monuments occupy a small place."

"There must also be some random accumulations to enable us to discover unexpected relationships. But serendipity is possible only when recollection is essentially a holding fast to what is meaningful and a release of what is not."

"To attempt to preserve all of the past would be life-denying."

"An environment that cannot be changed invites its own destruction."

"We prefer a world that can be modified progressively, against a background of valued remains, a world in which one can leave a personal mark alongside the marks of history."

"Like law and custom, environment tells us how to act without requiring of us a conscious choice. In a church we are reverent and on a beach we are relaxed."

"The remote past is different, since it does not threaten the present."

"Accumulated literary associations add depth to the experience; place names become pegs for layers of commentaries, as in the Chinese culture. But at base the emotional pleasure is a heightened sense of the flow of time."

"“An environment that facilitates recalling and learning is a way of linking the living moment to a wide span of time. Being alive is being awake in the present, secure in our ability to continue but alert to the new things that come streaming by. We feel our own rhythm, and feel also that it is part of the rhythm of the world. It is when local time, local place, and our own selves are secure that we are ready to face challenge, complexity, vast space, and the enormous future.”"

"Leisure is now possible for many , and customs of timing are more obvious and less absolute. Time has become both more valuable and also more subject to reallocation."

"...education in seeing will be quite important as the reshaping of what is seen. Indeed, they together form a circular, or hopefully a spiral, process: visual education impelling the citizen to act upon his visual world, and this action causing him to see even more acutely. A highly developed art of urban design is linked to the creation of a critical and attentive audience. If art and audience grow together, then our cities will be a source of daily enjoyment to millions of their inhabitants."

"...a distinctive and legible environment not only offers security but also heightens the potential depth and intensity of human experience."

"Any existing, functioning urban area has structure and identity, even if only in weak measure...A frequent problem is the sensitive reshaping of an already existing environment: discovering and preserving its strong images, solving its perceptual difficulties, and, above all, drawing out the structure and identity latent in the confusion."

"...different observers will all find perceptual material which is congenial to their own particular way of looking at the world. While one man may recognize a street by its brick pavement, another will remember its sweeping curve, and a third will have located the minor landmarks along its length."

"The contemporary urban area has man-made characteristics and problems that often override the specificity of site. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that the specific character of a site is now perhaps as much the result of human action and desires as of the original geological structure."

"...the function of a good visual environment may not be simply to facilitate routine trips, nor to support meanings and feelings already possessed. Quite as important may be its role as a guide and a stimulus for new exploration."

"In a complex society, there are may interrelations to be mastered...If an environment has strong visible framework and highly characteristic parts, then exploration of new sectors is both easier and more inviting."

"Concepts of size may depend in part on how well a structure can be grasped."

"It is taken for granted that in actual design form should be used to reinforce meaning, and not to negative it."

"Initially what is important is to be able to successfully make a useful object over which the maker can exclaim, with pleasure and amazement, 'I made this myself!"

"The finest design for society will not be one worked up by specialists but a design created by the people themselves to fit their needs."

"The teacher is the designer of the learning process a choreographer of discovery."

"Many things that if you’re attractive it for us become ugly to us when we gain deeper knowledge: a building that took an oppressed class to build, a tool that will not hold an edge, clothes that shrink or fade on Washington. Are these beautiful? That way we answer this question is momentous impact for our concept of society."

"...when we have more minds concerned, any challenge shrinks proportionally. The solution to our greatest problems may simply be involvement."

"When as a society we fail to help all people have confidence in their ability to create, we are doubly wasteful. First, we lose from society’s reservoir the creative potential of so many, and second we see those who are left out lose well-being and emotional security."

"A swarm of Jews has within the last ten years settled in every Southern town, many of them men of no character, opening cheap clothing and trinket shops, ruining or driving out of business many of the old retailers, and engaging in an unlawful trade with the simple negroes, which is found very profitable."

"In New Haven, in the 60s, I designed some housing using trailers. I had the acquiescence of Mayor Lee, a remarkable mayor indeed. The whole notion of making a project for about 150 people using trailers was difficult to persuade anybody to do. I suppose it was a mistake; it was eventually demolished. People hated it. First of all it leaked, which is a very good reason to hate something, but I think it was much more complicated than that. Psychologically, the good folk who inhabited these dwellings thought that they were beneath them. In other words, the deviation of the dwelling was not something to their liking. I thought, and I suppose the mayor thought, that trailers were perfectly good enough for them. But I should say, in defense of what we built, that it was a pocket court plan and that it provided a separate outside space for each family. There were two stories, with a core at the center. I am very tenacious about certain things, and in the long run it seems to me that with the correcting of mistakes one can make something much more successful."

"I find that every project is a new discovery process. I believe an architect should really understand the client's need and his ambitions for that building, his idealism of what that building should be like, the people who work there."

"Everything you make is being made by every single experience you've ever had in your whole life, and on top of that, things you were born with. I think your personality comes out. There's no way of really saying: "If A, then B, or A plus B equals C in creativity." The true strength of the creative arts is that you allow yourself to think about something. Then how it finds its way in your mind to the surface through your hands to-- whether it's paint or sculpture-- is intuited. I think there's reason to it. But could you extrapolate? Could you actually formulate a mathematical theorem? Absolutely not."

"Another adage in art is: you're a child and then you become an adult. You're always trying to regain that pure, almost empathetic response that you have when you're a child. It doesn't come with a lot of baggage. You're not worried about, "Oh, what are you thinking here, here, here?" You just respond in certain ways. I think sometimes: Can you think like a child? We're always trying to regain that. I almost make things imagining a child will experience them."

"Now, your great fear in art is that it's never guaranteed you're going to get that next idea. And there's always the fear that the idea you just made that you really, really love, you'll never be able to do it again."

"I try to understand the "why" of a project before it's a "what." And this might be more pertinent to some of my memorial projects. Memorials are a hybrid between art and architecture because they have a function."

"The Vietnam War was much more in the main news. I think the rioting was. But I think a lot of the facts hadn't been written into the textbooks because it was current news. From a child's point of view, you're not focusing on the daily news the same way. Anyway, I was stunned at how there was this part of American history. I know now it's absolutely covered in textbooks. But could I offer something out as an information table that would give people a brief glimpse of that era the way I had been, after having looked at this material, been given a glimpse? And of course, the idea is, you look at this. You'll want to study it more. Because the one thing about sculptures, the one thing about memorials is: I can draw you in. I can make you think for 15 minutes, whatever, then it's really about where you go after that."

"I value writing. I respect it. I find it the most difficult thing for me to do, but when I'm done I am unbelievably just at peace. If you think about art as being able to share your thoughts with another, writing is totally pure."

"I had a simple impulse to cut into the earth. I imagine taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up and the initial violence and pain that in time would heal. The grass would grow back, but the initial cut would remain a pure, flat surface in the earth with a polished mirrored surfaced, much like the surface on a geode when you cut it and polish the edge. The need for the names to be on the memorial would become the memorial. There was no need to embellish the design further. The people and their names would allow everyone to respond and remember. It would be an interface between our world and the quieter, darker, more peaceful world beyond."

"I had been blessed that racism had never really entered into my realm. I get to Denmark and ironically I think they thought I was a Greenlander at times. An eskimo. Because if I get a suntan, I change through different races. Some people think I'm American Indian. When I'm in Mexico, I blend."

"If you ever tried to analyze its shape, it's one of the most complex forms. Think about it, it's every compound curve. There's nothing symmetrical about it. It's about looking at something again and then appreciating it. I mean, nature, is so complex."

"I’ve always been pretty fixated on water. Maybe it’s because it exists in multiple states, and you can never understand it in nature as a fixed moment in time."

"I think I’ve always had an activist stance, yet at the same time, the other side of me—and this is where some people just don’t get it, or they’d prefer it if the work was a lot uglier, a lot louder—I have this personality where I just want to put something out that’s a fact and then let you interpret it. It’s almost as if you might barely notice it, you might walk right by it, but you have to pay attention."

"It’s a bit unusual, as you said, to be working between the architecture, the art, and what I would say is a synthesis, the memorials—they’re problem solving, but it’s very symbolic. You get this triangle; I need to be balanced with those three. They’re all equally a part of who I am. I love how different they are, and yet they’re coming out the same thing, whatever it is."

"I leave it up to the viewers. If it’s in a museum, if it’s in a gallery, usually I am going to point out something about a river right below your feet or right outside your window. I’m not going to scream it out. If you get a little curious, you can find a little bit more. At times my works are maybe to a fault subtle. For public works, maybe you won’t even notice I was here. I’m not trying to defeat or conquer nature."

"I think art is different. I think you have to be who you are. My art happens to be very integrally linked with my environmental concerns. But to be an artist, you have to be true to who you are."

"It took a lot to understand and to thread a path that would allow me to develop in architecture, and develop my voice there, develop my voice in art. I wasn’t abandoning what I would call my interest in history and memory."

"I tend to make models of a lot of my pieces. I end up making models, and the models get bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I call it the Christmas tree syndrome. You buy a Christmas tree outdoors, you think it’s too small, then you bring it inside and you have to lop two feet off because it’s way too big. If you’re working out of doors, you have to test actual scale, with a paper cutout, with a maquette at full scale, because you need it to feel intimate like a dining table. You have to scale it up just enough so that it will still feel intimate — so it won’t jump to monumental in scale. It has to be bigger than it would be inside because then it would get dwarfed. You can only do that by actually mocking it up."

"There are a couple of things out there that I really want to do. I’ll tell you one. I want to work in a landfill. I love things that involve adaptive reuse of really degraded places. The sad thing about our current landfills are, you can’t dig a hole into them, because heaven forbid, there’s all this toxic stuff in there. It’s not just that I want to work in a landfill. I would like to help rethink what a landfill could be. What if we didn’t put anything toxic in? What if we composted all our organic matter? So then it wouldn’t be dangerous to plant a tree in it, you wouldn’t have to cap it because you think there’s so much poison in there. What if we could recycle all our rare-earth metals and minerals? It’s a big ask. That’s something I want to do in my lifetime."

"Every bowl we ate off was something he made by hand: stonewares connected to nature and natural colors and materials. And so I think our everyday lives was imbued with this very clean, modern, but very warm aesthetic, and that very much influenced me."

"In art, I get to walk into my head and do whatever I want to do, to free up completely. That goes back to my roots in Athens, Ohio, my roots in nature and my feelings of connections to the environment, that everything is coalesced around being inspired by the natural world and reflecting that beauty out to others."

"I have fought very, very hard to get past being known as the Monument Maker."

"By second or third grade, I was doing my own thing. I still resent being told what to do in any way, shape, or form. I’m sure it’s clinical."

"I would hope that artists can offer a different viewpoint, a different way of seeing the exact same data points, but maybe, because we can think a little bit outside of the norm, we can offer a new way of looking at it."

"I think art is personal to each artist, and so to me it is what my art always has been about. But that’s my choice as an artist. I don’t believe art necessarily has to be any one thing. In fact, if we all felt inclined to have to do that, I think it would be a disaster for art."

"She’s just amazing, when you think about what she has done, the work she quietly does in her way. She doesn’t seek attention, but at the same time, people come to her because they know that she will take that opportunity and the gifts, the talent she has and from what I’ve seen, and we all see, that it’ll be remarkable."

"The response is where Lin starts her work as a designer. She creates, essentially, backward. There is no image in her head, only an imagined feeling. Often, she writes an essay explaining what the piece is supposed to do to the people who encounter it. She says that the form just comes to her, sometimes months later, fully developed, an egg that shows up on the doorstep one day. She rarely tinkers with it. She is, in other words, an artist of a rather pure and intuitive type."

"Fashion is one of the greatest vehicles to merge music, art, architecture, design, typography... It’s a wide enough canvas, or a big enough sandbox, to touch all the different things that I’m into."

"You know my style of clothing is basically a discourse between me and the kids. That’s what the premise of the brand is... We’re talking straight to the market. But I believe in the romantic interchange between intellectuals about fashion."

"This booklet had first an elementary explanation of the geometry of Zonohedra, then a more difficult account of the growths of the thirty-one zone star. This system, based on the 31 lines that pass through the center of an and either a vertex, edge midpoint of face midpoint is new and unusual."

"I have applied for a patent on this structural system. The patent is assigned to Zomeworks Corporation. The predecessors of this system are the octet truss and the MERO space grid system. The relative potentials of these systems are discussed briefly by a comparison of their geometric possibilities."

"The forms possible using this system are limitless; there is no attempt here to explore these possibilities—the examples shown are small probings. The booklet describes the mathematics of the process that creates these limitless forms."

"Zomes can cluster together like soap bubbles. Their zones can be stretched, shrunk, or omitted completely to make the various zomes' different shapes and sizes. The zomes can also pack several layers deep."

"The , because of its shape and the arrangement of its structural members is extremely strong, but its uses are limited because of the inflexibility of its shape. It is always part of a sphere... any variation would destroy the structural properties... It is complicated in structure and simple in shape. Zomes are simple in structure and complicated in shape."

"The regular polyhedra are like seeds from which growths may appear. They are the connecting joints for the zonohedra."

"Zonohedra have bands of parallel edges. Any such band... can be stretched to alter the shape of the zonohedron. Stretching the band... does not alter any angles."

"Stretching zones allows... buildings of different shapes using the same kinds of components."

"The and the are duals of each other—the vertices of one match the face midpoints of the other and vice versa."

"The icosahedron and the dodecahedron have five fold symmetry. They cannot occur as crystals."

"Five fold symmetry does appear among other symmetries in nature."

"[[w:Recursion|[R]ecursive]] growth... In the case of... five fold symmetry there isn't uniformity. ...Instead of reproducing itself... it becomes steadily more intricate."

"The more you examine properties of objects and phenomena the more you find yourself presented with a few terms, usually simple, from a long series of terms. Often you cannot touch the terms which are further or lower in the series, but you can define the properties which they have. One gets the feeling of living in a container—one of an infinite number—to which are shunted objects and phenomena which have passed through one filter but can't pass through another; a great process like that which takes place in a gravel yard, only we are unable to see gravel other than that of our own size but sense that it exists in endless different piles beyond—everything from sand to planet sized boulders."

"The coherence proof demonstrates that if one builds a structure using the A and B lines of the 31 zone star (...C lines ...used only within ...forms defined by ...A and B lines) and always follow the rule... no matter how far or intricately one builds, two extensions of two entirely different limbs of the same structure can always be locked back together in a perfect fit with a combination of our simple parts."

"We have associated the thirty-one zone star throughout with the icosahedron and... dodecahedron. It also fits perfectly with the three smaller regular polyhedra. The , the and the fit inside the icosahedron and... dodecahedron. Their vertices touch a vertex, an edge midpoint or a face midpoint of the larger figure. This regular match... positions the smaller figure so that regular patterns on the large figure project inwards as regular patterns on the small figure. In each case either five or ten small figures fit at once within the larger..."

"Each of the regular polyhedra is thus a convenient core from which to define the regular thirty-one zone star. The geometric regularities insure simplicity in the connections. Any one of the regular polyhedra can be used with the same pattern of flanges or holes on each of its faces as a connector for the thirty-one zone structural system."

"The joint must... be strong and inexpensive. If the joint is a ball and the A, B and C connections are... holes which the members screw into... holes of the same type... and the ends of all structural members are identical. ...[Y]ou can't make mistakes..."

"There is a mistake-proof flange joint for both A and C connections if one hierarchy is introduced. You must always orient the joint to suit A lines."

"I went to in Massachusetts for a couple of years and I went to UCLA for a year or two and then I went back to Amherst... I never quite fit... that... college thing. ...I joined the Army in 1960 and got married and Holly and I went to Germany... after I got out of the Army, I went to school in ."

"Holly had... toys made from polyhedra and she built one of these things and... it... blew my mind... I... found some mathematics books that described the geometry of polyhedra and convex figures. This wasn't too difficult since I had always been fascinated by math. It was the subject I had spent the most time on in school and... was studying at the time."

"[W]e left and... moved to Albuquerque where I worked as a surveyor and... welding trailer frames for Fruehof and Holly had a job and we didn’t spend much... I began to experiment more and more with structures."

"I found out that the people at were building domes and I went up there and helped... Then they came down and helped me. ...We built the first structures from car tops. We chopped the tops out of over a thousand cars... ...[W]e paid 25 cents apiece for them. ...They’re a good building material ...except that getting stuff from junkyards ...is ...bad for your ...mentality. You... become a parasite on something you criticize... You’re feeding on something you hate."

"We built and did solar heating experiments... solar heated a dome in 1967 with a big chimney—a rock storage bin—down the side of a hill. Many of those first things didn’t... work... well. I didn’t know what I was doing."

"I read this book of ’, Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy, and it just lit up my brain."

"When you start experimenting with, say, solar heating by covering collectors with glass or plastic and feeling the warm air blow out of them... well, it’s so exciting that you just get hooked and can’t stop."

"[W]e started Zomeworks. Barry Hickman and Ed Heinz and I issued stock like a corporation and got a lawyer... [I]t was quite an abrupt change from just casually working together on a project the way we had before."

"We started making playground climbers–using the 31–zone truss which is... explained in the Zome Primer –and... we were working on solar heating experiments."

"Right after we started Zomeworks, Day Chahroudi came out from California. He’d read the Dome Cookbook and he came walking up the road one afternoon with a rucksack on his back. ...[W]hen he started telling me his ideas about how things worked—physics ...I was so impressed by his ...approach to engineering problems that I persuaded him to stay ...He did and ...soon he developed a solar tracker... very simple and easy to build."

"So many... good ideas... worked... but they couldn’t keep working. Some of the first buildings we put up weren’t good buildings because they leaked. Many of those first solar heaters weren’t... very good..."

"Some of our hardware is getting pretty good, but it... doesn’t make economic sense for most people. ...[O]ur zomes and heaters and so forth do not yet compete on a dollar basis with... conventional counterparts. It’s very exciting intellectually to work with these ideas but their validity will not really be proven until they start to replace... things they’re meant to replace."

"[W]e haven’t had the money... to tool up to manufacture the parts for the playground climbers on a competitive basis. The people... simply can’t afford to buy them. ...[T]hey just can’t hold their own in the market and so we’re not building them anymore."

"The Skylid has no switches or wires or motors... Instead, the unit contains a series of louvers. Each... is supported and balanced so that it hinges easily around its center and... the louvers are connected with a tie rod so they’ll open and close simultaneously. ...[M]ounted on one of the panels are two canisters—one on the outside and one inside ...connected by ...tubing. ... ...with a very low ...can expand ...in one canister and ...condense in the other with a temperature difference of... 1 degree Fahrenheit. This shifting of the Freon’s weight will open and close the... louvers... and the... sun—even the shade of a cloud—produces... enough temperature variation to boil the Freon from one container to the other. ...[A] locking chain... secure[s] the panels anywhere from full open to full close... to override the automatic mechanism."

"I want to build buildings and design systems that are beautiful and simple and that really work. ...It’s not ...exotic or earthshaking to fill 55-gallon drums with water, paint them black and place them in the walls of a home for use as solar collectors ...but it works."

"[T]he philosophical tactics and... approach taken by the giant corporations and... power groups miss the point... A pencil can break on you and you can sharpen it with your thumbnail and go right on... but if a circuit board or a resistor or condenser quits somewhere inside this recorder, we’re stopped and there’s probably not a lot we can do about it. ...[Y]et we increasingly use tape recorders instead of pencils."

"At one time an individual could fix everything in his life with his thumb nail or his teeth. ...I believe the ground rules can be transformed so that technology simplifies life instead of continually complicating it."

"I don't think that building everything out of stones and living in animal skins is necessarily... healthier... I'm saying... life can be much more satisfying for an individual if he feels that he is in control of his destiny... Society and the tools of society, should be organized to give each one of us that feeling."

"[W]hen I was... 18 I... read... Lewis Mumford and... [saw] that... we could have a science and technology... understood and controlled by the individual instead of the other way around. ...I've been trying to crack the crap in science for 15 or 16 years now."

"Peter Van Dresser... built a solar heater here in New Mexico in 1956 or '58. We published his book, Landscape for Humans. One of the greatest forces... has been Harold Hay from California. ...I ...heard him in ’68 at the Solar Energy Conference. I had... a design and... modest success... Harold showed everyone... dead simple methods of doing the same job. He... completely changed my head around on how to attack these problems. ...[W]e’ve worked together a lot since then trying to bring some reforms into the Solar Society."

"[W]hen you're experimenting, about 80% of the ideas you try are failures... But we put all these concepts together and they performed the first time. ...[W]e had pretested most of the ideas we incorporated into this [our] home. We'd never used aluminum-skinned, honeycomb-cored structural sandwiches and... no one had... fabricated a complete building from the material... but every architectural and engineering book mentions the possibility... The 55-gallon, water-filled drums... [W]e... knew the amounts of energy... such... could pick up."

"[T]here's Dave Harrison's bead wall. I teach... classes at the University of New Mexico and Dave... one of my students... said. "...I've got this idea of building a wall out of two panes of glass... and you can blow Styrofoam beads between the panes at night to insulate the wall." ...Here's a problem ...nobody has thought of a way to solve. I've tried... and... Harold Hay has... and... a lot of others... Dave Harrison has the answer! ...[A] ...low-tech ...answer ...simple ...easy to understand, that a heating and ventilating man in any town can fix... [W]e’ve made a deal with Dave so that he’ll get a big part of any royalties we realize..."

"[T]he beadwall insulated window panels... this wonderful invention of David C. Harrison’s... a kind of super curtain that... transform[s] a clear dual-panel of glass into an opaque, well-insulated wall and back again."

"We’ve built two greenhouses utilizing the beadwall, and our test results show... it will do much of the heating and cooling required by an average office building or home."

"[W]ith its unique construction—there are never any air leaks."

"[I]f folks don’t like the idea once they’ve given it the once-over, we’ll be glad to buy the plans back at the full $15.00 purchase price."

"A few years ago Peter Van Dresser mentioned the Clothesline Paradox."

"Solar energy advocates are continuously humiliated by being shown "energy pies." Slices are assigned to coal, gas, oil, hydroelectric and even nuclear. but is evidently too small to appear."

"If you... remove the electric clothes dryer and install a clothesline the consumption of electricity drops slightly, but there is no credit given anywhere on the charts and graphs to solar energy which is now drying clothes."

"[C]oal, oil and natural gas are all solar energy products... and hydroelectric power is solar energy..."

"The graphs which demonstrate a huge dependence on fossil fuels are fine in one respect. They are alarming. But they are... [m]isleading... [in] that they blind people to obvious answers and prime them to a frenzy of effort in poor directions. Attention... to such... trains people to attempt to deliver what is shown in these accounting systems rather than what is needed."

"If you... ride and graze a horse... the horse's energy... does not appear on anyone's energy accounting."

"If you install interior greenhouse lights the electricity... is faithfully recorded. If you grow the plants outside no attempt is made at an accounting."

"If you drive to... buy a newspaper the gasoline consumption appears. If you walk—using food energy—the event has disappeared from sight..."

"The 's energy study shows the U.S.'s energy consumption in 1968 at... 62 quadrillion BTU ...[T]he average daily caloric intake is... 10,000 BTU/day/person—about 1.2% of the total consumption listed by the Bureau of Mines. But this... doesn't appear... on the graphs. Nuclear energy with 1% does... The food is solar energy. Why is it not included?"

"If we use the figure of 0.5% efficiency (Ayres and Scarlott)... we have consumed... 2,000,000 BTU/person/day of sunlight in producing the 10,000 BTU/person consumed. Solar energy then fills over 2/3 of the new energy pie."

"Why wouldn't it be fair to expand the slice—4% (1973—Bureau of Mines) given to hydroelectric power by a similar factor of efficiency—for the solar energy consumed in raising the water to its working head?"

"Every time the sun shines on the surface of a house and especially when it shines through a window there is "solar heating"...According to the NSF/NASA Energy Panel of 1972 the percentage of thermal energy for buildings supplied by the sun was too small to be measurable. ...Shouldn't we recalculate the energy consumption of every building assuming it were kept in the shade all day and... attribute the difference to solar energy? ...I would guess the average shaded fuel consumption to be 15% higher..."

"[O]ur next concern in heating the building is what keeps the earth warm..? What supplies the United States with the energy to maintain an average temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit as it spins in empty space at absolute zero? This is a heating contract that no oil company would be quick to try and fill."

"[I]t is very important to examine what the limits of an accounting system are—to know what the numbers and quantities... really mean."

"The design of houses can be stilted by such graphs."

"Now that the experts have started this infantile accounting system, which evidently finds us... independent of the sun, solar energy will be admitted only so long as it has been properly collected, stored and transferred."

"Legislation aimed at encouraging the use of solar energy equipment by subsidizing... certain hardware must end by being pathetic and blundering."

"It would take an enormous crew of experts to determine the efficiency of different orientations of windows, different arrangements of shade trees, etc... To ignore these efforts and only to reward the purchase of "off the shelf hardware" is to further the disease of narrow minded quantification."

"If you purchase certain kinds of hardware to exploit solar energy it will be accounted for and credit will be given to the sun. If you depend on more customary old-fashioned uses of solar energy, growing food, drying clothes, sun bathing, warming a house with south windows, the sun credit is totally ignored."

"Our present accounting system... can only discourage good house design. If the natural solar contribution to house heating from windows is ignored, then the designer knows this... No tax incentives—no credit to the sun in ERDA's graphs."

"[W]e would be much better informed if alongside every graph showing our use of oil, coal and uranium there were also an indication or the total energy received from the sun. Since we can't do without it, let's not omit it from our accounts."

"In the case of the United States a conservative estimate of the solar energy received in one year might be... Twenty nine thousand three hundred quadrillion Btu as opposed to the 62 quadrillion shown as used during 1968 by the U.S. Bureau of Mines."

"When small children first start paying attention to... their allowances they briefly commit their... minds to their few coins and... chores... without... considering the budget of the family's household. We can't allow our entire civilization to be similarly ignorant for long. We must ask who's keeping score and why they have such peculiar methods."

"The great problem with movable insulation is cracks. A door, shutter, or curtain is placed... The optimist notes the R value... but does not achieve it."

"The effect of clothes and blankets on heat loss is naturally investigated by everyone."

"A sniper scope or camera... that shows... temperatures as... colors would be an enormous help to the investigator. 30 minutes with such... could be as valuable as a week's work... without it. ...[N]ature ...treats you to such a view of the window or skylight with a pattern of frost. ...[S]eals ...[are] the entire problem."

"A crack... of 2 in2/ft2... can conduct 1/3 Btu/ft2hr°F."

"If you... have cracks... torture the air... by pressing the insulation panel... against the glass... air... must then spread in a thin film... Experimenting with smoke... once this layer is less than 1/16"... it is slowed... and acts almost like a syrup."

"Treat a glass area like a ship—break it into separate compartments so that a leak in one place won't be fatal."

"A [1974] test on conventional window shades showed... 1) A roller shade inside a with 1/4" gaps at the sides of the shade reduced heat loss through a single glazed window by about 28%. 2) A drape drawn in front of the... window reduced heat loss by about 6%. 3) A venetian blind reduced heat loss by 7%.During the summer the shading devices reduced heat gain by the following... 1) white, opaque roller shade 50% 2) venetian blinds (slats at 45%) 18% 3) venetian blinds (slats closed) 29%"

"Tests done at Zomeworks on 45° sloped skylights with our insulating Skylids installed beneath a single pain of glass show a reduction of heat loss of about 75%... The louvers average 3" thick, have aluminum skins and are filled with figerglass—most of the heat loss occurs through air leaks..."

"The Beadwall seems to be the perfect answer for superior insulation against heat loss."

"Tests done by thermal decay of a glass aquarium show a U factor of the naked glass of about 1 1/3 and of the glass covered with Nightwall, of about 1/3."

"Movable insulation can... be used to prevent heat gain. ...[T]he best position ...is outside the glass rather than inside."

"A particularly attractive use of insulating panels is to have them double as reflectors—during the day they bounce additional energy through the same window they will insulate at night. Often it is most cost-effective to have a movable reflector outside a south window or skylight that is changed seasonally... not daily."

"SUMMARY 1) It is best to have a way to prevent both heat gain and heat loss. 2) Be skeptical of mechanical seals. 3) Do not use single glazing unless it is a mild climate or the movable insulation is controlled by a reliable automatic means. 4) Do not install anything you cannot fix. 5) Look for two uses for one material. 6) Break the area to be insulated into pieces so that an air leak in one area will be isolated. 7) Always use strong, durable materials outside."

"[I]t's more satisfying to develop and manufacture less expensive items which pay for themselves. It makes me sleep better at night."

"The tendency is not to care about spending somebody else's money—so even at this time when we're supposed to be conserving energy we're instituting policies that make people conserve less."

"ZW is a privately owned corporation. We are not supported by federal grants. We depend on your business for support."

"You don't need to have a [government energy] policy... there already is a policy—it's each individual's policy. We need the government for some things like the armed forces, but not in the marketplace."

"We don't have a shortage of fuel... gas is still cheap and we have an abundance of coal and uranium. The goals might encourage energy conservation—but it would aid in energy conservation if we all dropped dead, too. Energy conservation is not an end in itself—no one really gives a damn about energy conservation—it's happiness that people are concerned with."

"We've gone too far in letting the government into our affairs..."

"I care about the spirit of innovation... I'm an inventor, but it's a bad time for people to do that. Many of us who developed the ideas behind direct gain heating—and have been successful—our ideas have been co-opted by the government, and it's disappointing that the government does not now turn to us for new ideas. ...They're stacking the decks against the little guy ..."

"Drop City, Colorado, a rural vacant lot full of elegant funky domes and ditto people, has been well photographed and poorly reported in national magazines. Visitors and readers... assumed that the domes were geodesic Fuller domes, which some... are. But most... were designed by another guy who designed by another geometry: Steve Baer."

"This tabloid contains the crystallographic theory and junkyard practice behind Baer's domes: from how to distort a polyhedron without affecting connector angles to how to chop out a car without losing your foot. ...Baer's theory is unique in architecture. So is his practice; instead of dying of dissertation dry rot, his notions stand around in the world bugging the citizens."

"The Dome Cookbook is published by Lama Foundation, an intentional community in New Mexico, built largely of Baer domes."

"High above the roofs of... Martineztown, one of Albuquerque's oldest s... a growing army of... structures...point south to capture sunlight... [for] two large buildings... Zomeworks Corporation, one of the nation's earliest companies."

"Founded in 1969... some of the buildings were called "zomes"—or "dodecahedral structures"... Others were heated in a simple way with... "passive" solar heating."

"Ten years later Zomeworks has moved to a newly renovated showroom (once the home of Martineztown dance hall)... [P]anels insulate many of the windows at night... attached by small magnetic clips... only one of the passive solar devices developed by Zomeworks..."

"Many other Zomeworks ideas... as... black 55 gallon drums behind glass... (the "drumwall") have... become classics..."

"[T]he devices are cheap. A thermosyphoning solar water heater... costs less than half as much as most solar water heaters. A solar preheater... is even less."

"The company... manufactures... "skylids" (insulated shutters for skylights that open and close with the sun) and "beadwalls" (double pain windows that fill and drain with beads to let the sun in or keep the cold out)."

"[T]he company's newest product, "Big Fin" water heaters... can be placed inside a greenhouse or other glass enclosed area. After its copper pipes have been heated by the sun, the water... flows to an elevated heating tank by... natural convection and the cool water at the bottom of the tank flows back... There's no electric pump. The cost... $850."

"According to Baer... the best solar ideas come from people who are taking a chance—"and not just drawing a salary.""

"Baer says that solar energy is already supplying a large proportion of our needs through daylight, which makes the use of electric lights during the day unnecessary, and in agriculture, where it enables the production of food. Yet this... "unreclaimed" solar energy is not... counted in the statistics."

"If we have no faith in ourselves and in the kind of future we can create together, we are fit only to follow, not to lead. Let us remember that the Bible contains two proverbs we cannot afford to forget. The first is "Man does not live by bread alone" and the second is "Where there is no vision, the people perish.""

"[Success is] that old ABC — ability, breaks and courage."

"The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth."

"The - manner of looking at nature according to the principles of painterly composition is symbolized by a device known as a . Reputedly invented as an aid by the painter , it was a convex, dark-toned glass that reflected landscapes in miniature, with "" tints and merging detail. It was popular with s and gentlemen travelers in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and was still used in the first half of the nineteenth century."

"My personal emotional response to , like that of so many others, is sensory—stretching out on a large sun-warmed rock outcrop, watching players and picnickers on the , seeing a great production of The Tempest in the in the gloaming of a summer evening, a flash of red from the plumage of a on a spring day in , walking barefoot on the grass of the , the memory of on the frozen on New Year's Day 1981, listening to the moody sound from a saxophone being played beneath the one of the park's reverberating stone arches ... I could go on."

"During the summer of 1966 and in subsequent years, operated as the venue for rock 'n' roll, jazz, , pop, and concerts sponsored by . Overlooking the objections of his recently appointed Central Park curator, , played on the public's justifiable fear that the park had become unsafe at night: "It's my responsibility to make it so exciting that people will come there in droves, and that also is protection." He did not foresee the event to which his "attractions to draw teenagers" would stimulate the consumption of alcohol and the sale of drugs in the park, nor the effect this would have on the park's landscape and future safety."

"faced the challenge of converting what was still a ragged 843-acre wasteland into a pleasure ground that is a masterpiece of landscape design and paragon of social beneficence, while my task was not to build such an extraordinary civic amenity but to develop a plan and find the means to rescue this underappreciated, wholly original tour de force from further destruction—a less remarkable but nevertheless important feat."

"In this magnum opus, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, the founding president of the and a longtime administrator of that celebrated oasis, stakes out and cultivates a breathtakingly vast terrain: the history of man-made landscape from to the present. Though Rogers focuses on a number of well-known gardens and parks — from of A.D. 118-38 outside Rome to Antonio Gaudí's of 1900-14 in Barcelona — her subject is less than the social interaction of various cultures with their natural settings. Encompassing as much as , this panoramic study is impressive not only for its encyclopedic scope but also for the author's authoritative command of so much diverse material and for her lucid writing."

"The garden has always been subject to two main influences—the outer influence from the and the inner from the house."

"The recent obituaries of gave a measure of tribute to his engineering innovations at . It was undoubtedly he who conceived of tracks, bridges and buildings all in a single structural entity; the double-deck track fan to save space and the loop connection to circulate the trains. It was he who worked out all the details with the first official architects, , but to these winners of the competion for the new station goes the credit for the device for looping on "exterior circumferential elevated driveways" instead of through the centre of the station athwart the concourse as Wilgus had suggested."

"It was who spurred the design of , bringing from Chicago to plan his last great triumph in the late 1920s."

"Named to the Yale faculty in 1945 as assistant professor of , he eventually became director of Yale's graduate course in |city planning when it was initiated in 1950 and which he directed for the next decade. In 1962 he became professor of city planning and in 1965 he was named chairman of the department. In September 1969, as the result of a major reorganization of Yale's School of Art and Architecture, which split the school into two divisions, Professor Tunnard was appointed director of studies in planning, and remained in that post until his retirement in 1975."

"The house and its surroundings are intimately connected with the home, each modifies the other. Hawthorne's , Poe's , there reports of investigations of housing committees, , all tell us the same story. The dwellers in a house put their stamp upon it, even when they have left it empty it reflects something of their characters and habits from its walls and floors, from the very air which has surrounded them. Still more the house modifies the home and the people who dwell in it. Disease and death come more frequently to the damp, unventilated house than to the sunlit one. The inconvenient house, making irksome the necessary work, influences the dispositions of all under its roof. The quiet dignified house with a beautiful outlook brings soothing and inspiration."

"A convenient kitchen is one in which the necessary work can be done with the least possible effort. To plan such a kitchen requires at least two things. First, there must be a clear idea of all the routine jobs to be done in the kitchen in the order that they are most likely to come. , cooking, serving, clearing away and are the jobs that follow each other most often in the majority of kitchens. Second, after the plan of work is clearly in mind, comes the choosing and placing of the needed equipment. The relation of the kitchen to the rest of the house, especially the dining portion, also plays an important part in convenience."

"A two-year study made by Gray (3) of one family's food during the indicated that even intelligent persons living on a very low income are likely to have a deficient diet. The of the three women in this family, two of whom were college students, furnished per person per day 2372 Calories, 41 grams , 0.59 gram , 0.79 gram , and 0.000754 gram iron. ... 3. Gray, Greta. One family's food during the depression. Jour. Home Econ. 27:24-25. 1935."

"Some of them act as though they want to bar me but I walk in, throw my cards down and I'm in. My money talks."