Thom Mayne Famous Quotes
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I've grown up a little bit. I understand the importance of the negotiation. It is a collective act.
Do I provoke as a method of investigation? Of course. That's the essence of architecture. Do I do it with gusto? I do.
Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art.
Architecture is the story of how we see ourselves. It is the architect's job to service everyday life.
I don't know any architects that I respect who don't have their own voice. I think the difference between architecture and the other arts is your immersion in reality.
I have a preference for rough architecture, real, inexpensive, unfinished.
Large-scale public projects require the agreement of large numbers of people.
So we can't go backwards, we can only go where the evolutionary trajectory is taking us and attune our ideas about ourselves and our existence to that course.
Our idea of nature is increasingly being determined by scientific developments. And they have become decisive for our image of reality.
In Paris, there has to be a presence. History becomes the most interesting when it's compared to the present. I mean there's a whole group of people that want to build new buildings that look like old buildings.
The age of recalcitrance is over. The best solution is no longer just to regurgitate a 19th-century design.
I enjoy working with people. I understand that as a necessity. And clearly that's something that develops as you get older. And I've grown into that.
I'm interested in conflict and confrontation.
Descriptions of my work depress me. They make me feel pinned down.
Art in progress. MAK has occupied a unique and valuable space as international host for discourse between the arts and architecture.
We're producing spaces that accommodate human activity. And what I'm interested in is not the styling of that, but the relationship of that as it enhances that activity. And that directly connects to ideas of city-making.
I lived in a state of rage from 12 to 20. Until college, I was beyond an outsider. I was a voyeur of life.
Architecture is the beginning of something because it's - if you're not involved in first principles, if you're not involved in the absolute, the beginning of that generative process, it's cake decoration.
I'm not just influenced by the '60s - it's who I am. I grew up with Allen Ginsberg and Che Guevara. I flirted with various forms of communism when it was way out of style. It was this really strange and creative time in music and culture, and it was fabulous.
But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.
You can't make anything authentic by asking people what they want because they don't know what they want. That's what they're looking at you for.
So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.
I think a lot of people have the Frank Lloyd Wright model in their brains. The architect comes in with this act of creation and lays it down, and that's it. But that's not me.
Scientific reality is the modern human condition, and you can see that in the symbolic nature of my work.
I've always been interested in an architecture of resistance - architecture that has some power over the way we live. Working under adversarial conditions could be seen as a plus because you're offering alternatives. Still, there are situations that make you ask the questions: 'Do I want to be a part of this?'
Find a place that you are comfortable with. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Make a lot of mistakes.
I think all good architecture should challenge you, make you start asking questions. You don't have to understand it. You may not like it. That's OK.
I've learned that in order to achieve what I wanted, it made more sense to negotiate than to defend the autonomy of my work by pounding my fist on the table.
My buildings don't speak in words but by means of their own spaciousness.
So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I'm going counter to my own development. It's more an instinctive reaction, meant to protect the private aspect of the work, the part I am most interested in and which nowadays is at risk in our culture.
I've been such an outsider my whole life.
I'm often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That's impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more.
Somehow, architecture alters the way we think about the world and the way we behave. Any serious architecture, as a litmus test, has to be that.
I think my clients would tell you I'm a problem solver. I'm not there to agree with people. I'm there to articulate a point of view. Am I insistent and tenacious? Absolutely. I could not get this work done if I was not.
We only exist in terms of how we think we exist. Meaning every cultural development is fabricated and can be fabricated.