80 Architecture Quotes For Those Who Love Buildings and Design

These architecture quotes show that it is so much more than an art or mere science.

What exactly is architecture?

Well, to put it simply, architecture is the art or science of building.

More specifically, the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially ones that people plan to live in.

Architecture quotes from Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous American architect, and educator, give you a glimpse into his philosophy about architecture.

Like many things of a philosophical nature, many of these quotes offer a parallel to life or just some great life advice in general!

Getting back to the actual science of buildings though, just how many types of architecture are there?

There are quite a few, but some of them are more recognizable than others and can be found in many different parts of the world.

You can use this new knowledge to caption Instagram posts from your travels about the beautiful buildings you may encounter!

Don’t forget to also check out these design quotes to boost creativity & inspire artistry.

If you enjoy this article, check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily motivation. 

Browse our entire collection of inspirational quotes for more motivating ideas and concepts.

Architecture quotes on what it is

1. “Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.” — Louis Kahn

You will also enjoy our article on engineering quotes.

2. “Architecture is a visual art, and the buildings speak for themselves.” — Julia Morgan

You will also enjoy our article on brick quotes.

3. “Architecture is inhabited sculpture.” — Constantin Brancusi

4. “Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.” — Louis Kahn

5. “Life is architecture and architecture is the mirror of life.” — I.M. Pei

6. “Architecture is a dangerous mix of power and importance.” — Rern Koolhaas

7. “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” — Mies van de Rohe

8. “Architecture is the art of how to waste space.” — Philip Johnson

9. “Architecture is a learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.” — Le Corbusier

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

Funny and short architecture quotes

11. “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” — Brian Reed

12. “Practice safe design: Use a concept.” — Petrula Vrontikis

13. “In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it’s modern architecture.” — Nancy Banks-Smith

14. “Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because the idea wasn’t theirs.” — Frank Chimero

15. “Home is where you hang your architect.” — Chare Booth Luce

16. “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.” — Ernest Hemingway

17. “I don’t know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.” — Frank Gehry

18. “People ignore design that ignores people.” — Frank Chimero

19. “Architecture begins where engineering ends.” —Walter Gropius

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

Architecture quotes on life

21. “The life of a designer is one of fight: fight against the ugliness.” — Massimo Vignelli

22. “Less is a bore.” — Robert Venturi

23. “Our opportunity, as designers, is to learn how to handle the complexity, rather than shy away from it, and to realize that the big art of design is to make complicated things simple.” — Tim Parsey

24. “One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.” — Renzo Piano

25. “Good architecture is like a good therapy session, a good marriage, a good poem – gently and almost invisibly allowing you to be you, as flawed and as beautiful as you are.” — Robert Sullivan

26. “Architecture never derived its force from stability of culture, but rather from the expression of those moments when that sense of stability slipped.” — Mark Wigley

27. “People who build their own home tend to be very courageous. These people are curious about life. They’re thinking about what it means to live in a house, rather than just buying a commodity and making it work.” — Tom Kundig

28. “I’m convinced that without bad design, the world would be a far less stimulating place; we would have nothing to marvel over and nothing to be nostalgic about.” — Carrie Phillips

29. “Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake.” — Luis Barragán

30. “Architecture is basically a container of something. I hope they will enjoy not so much the teacup, but the tea.” — Yoshio Taniguchi

Architecture quotes for Instagram

31. We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” — Winston Churchill

32. Architecture is frozen music.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

33. “Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.” — Frank Gehry

34. A building is not just a place to be, but a way to be.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

35. “New ideas often need old buildings.” — Jane Jacobs

36. “If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.” — Arne Jacobsen

37. “A design isn’t finished until someone is using it.” — Brenda Laurel

38. “There is beauty in ruins to those who see.” — Emmanual Rajkumar

39. Great buildings, like great mountains, are the work of centuries.” — Victor Hugo

40. We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.” — Ray Bradbury

Architecture quotes from Frank Lloyd Wright

41. “Every great architect is – necessarily – a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

42. “Organic architecture seeks superior sense of use and a finer sense of comfort, expressed in organic simplicity.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

43. “A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

44. “The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own, we have no soul of our civilization.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

45. “All fine architectural values are human values, else not valuable.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

46. “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 with each the happier for the other.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

47. “Buildings, too, are children of Earth and Sun.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

48. “An architect’s most useful tools are an eraser at the drafting board and a wrecking bar at the site.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

49. “The architect must be a prophet… a prophet in the true sense of the term… if he can’t see at least ten years ahead, don’t call him an architect.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

50. “A great architect is not made by way of a brain nearly so much as he is made by way of a cultivated, enriched heart.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

Allegorical Architecture Quotes

51. “The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.” – John Green

52. “It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.” – David Allan Coe

53. We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

54. “The loftier the building, the deeper must the foundation be laid. – Thomas a Kempis

55. “Each new situation requires a new architecture.” – Jean Nouvel

56. “Good buildings come from good people, and all problems are solved by good design.” – Stephen Gardiner

57. “Buildings should serve people, not the other way around.” – John Portman

58. “Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect’s task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.” – Adolf Loos

59. “I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.” – Ayn Rand

60. “A modern, harmonic and lively architecture is the visible sign of authentic democracy.” – Walter Gropius

Architecture quotes on where form and function collide

61. “Good architecture lets nature in.” – Mario Pei

62. “When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

63. “It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.” – Alain de Botton

64. Whatever good things we build end up building us.” – Jim Rohn

65. “Less is more.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

66. “I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.” – Tadao Ando

67. “A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.” – Louis Kahn

68. “Color in certain places has the great value of making the outlines and structural planes seem more energetic.” – Antoni Gaudi

69. “Form follows function.” – Louis Sullivan

70. “I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That’s art to me.” – Maya Lin

Architecture Quotes For Creative Ideas

71. “There will never be great architects or great architecture without great patrons.” — Edwin Lutyens

72. “Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture.” — Arthur Erickson

73. “If the architecture is any good, a person who looks and listens will feel its good effects without noticing.” — Carlo Scarpa

74. “They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.” — Henry David Thoreau

75. “Architecture immortalizes and glorifies something. Hence there can be no architecture where there is nothing to glorify.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein

76. “Maybe we can show the government how to operate better as a result of better architecture.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

77. “Clearly, if a building is not functionally and technically in order, then it isn’t architecture either, it’s just a building.” — Arne Jacobsen

78. “A lot of my work is about questioning the stability and permanence of architecture, and, in turn, the stability of society.” — Lebbeus Woods

79. “Intellectual architecture means focusing on doing great work instead of focusing on agency politics.” — Jay Chiat

80. “The room is the beginning of architecture.” — Louis Kahn

What did you learn from these Architecture quotes?

One of the most popular types of architecture is that of the Greek and Roman Classical style.

The timeline for this type of architecture was from 850 BC to 476 AD, and it consisted of a lot of columns.

Structures that fit this type of architecture are the Roman Colosseum and the Acropolis complex in Athens.

Another type of architecture that is easy to spot is Gothic Architecture.

This style was popular for hundreds of years, spanning from 1150 to c. 1530.

This style started in France (think Notre Dame) and spread throughout the continent.

You can spot this architecture style because of these three distinct features: sharply pointed arches, ribbed and vaulted columns, and flying buttresses

You might also hear people talk about Baroque (Late 16th Century to 18th Century), Neoclassical (18th Century to early 19th Century), and Victorian (1837-1901).

What’s your biggest takeaway from these Architecture quotes and sayings?

Do you have a favorite architectural style?

Let us know what it is in the comment section below!