Arthur Erickson

"We are stymied by regulations, limited choice and the threat of litigation. Neither consultants nor industry itself provide research which takes architecture forward."

"Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place?"

"Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today."

"Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us."

"The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line."

"After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared."

"Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart."

"No wonder the film industry started in the desert in California where, like all desert dwellers, they dream their buildings, rather than design them."

"Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture."

"The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe."

"The way of architecture is the quiet voice that underlies it and has guided it from the beginning."

"Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it."