Architecture is our built environment, what we live in, work in, take shelter in and try to get out of every once in a while. For millenia, people have been building shelters out of the materials they find around them. As societies develop their own cultures they also develop their own architectural vernacular. Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the world’s most influential architects, is one of my favorites. Here is some of my architecture photography and a few thoughts about architecture from him and his mentor Louis Sullivan, father of the modern skyscraper.
“I know that architecture is life; or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is being lived today or ever will be lived.” – Wright
“Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods, and men to put man into possession of his own earth.” – Wright
“Architecture is basic to culture. Music is an attribute of culture, so is painting, so would sculpture be. But architecture you experience; the other things you accede to. So without architecture you cannot have a culture.” – Wright
“Once you learn to look at architecture not merely as an art more or less well or more or less badly done, but as a social manifestation, the critical eye becomes clairvoyant.” – Sullivan
“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.” – Sullivan
As a bonus, a few thoughts from Thomas Jefferson, founding father and architect, on the subject of architecture.
“Architecture worth great attention. as we double our numbers every 20 years we must double our houses. … it is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much.” – Jefferson
“And I hope it will remain so during my life, as architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favourite amusements.” – Jefferson
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