Quotes

The following is a curated collection of some of our favourite quotes from various icons past and present on topics ranging from art, architecture and design to aesthetics and materiality to creativity, improvisation and destruction to waste, the environment and stewardship of the land. Whether you agree or disagree with these statements, whether or not you find them inspiring, we hope you at least find them thought–provoking.

'Eliminate the very concept of waste, not reduce, minimize or avoid waste, but eliminate the very concept, by design.' – Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart

'In nature there is no such thing as waste. In nature nothing is wasted; everything is recycled.' – David Susuki

'The most sustainable building is the one that is already built.' – Carl Elefante

'The most environmentally friendly product is the one you didn't buy.' – Joshua Becker

‘We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and for each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make. The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependent on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do.’ – Wendell Berry

‘We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself. New materials are not necessarily superior. Each material is only what we make of it.’ – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

‘There must be a union between the spirit in wood and the spirit in man... Gradually a form evolves, much as nature produces the tree in the first place. The object created can live forever. The tree lives on in its new form. The object cannot follow a transitory “style”, here for a moment, discarded the next. Its appeal must be universal. Cordial and receptive, it should invite a meeting with man.’ – George Nakashima

'New ideas must use old buildings' – Jane Jacobs

‘The essence of minimalism is simplicity, but simplicity without depth is merely cheap, it is not enough.’ – Tadao Ando

‘Architecture isn’t just about creating new buildings, sometimes it's about retuning what’s already there.’ – John Pawson

'Even a common, ordinary brick... wants to be something more than it is.' – Louis Kahn

‘If architecture were at the point reached by jazz, it would be an incredible spectacle.’ – Le Corbusier

‘I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.’ – John Coltrane

‘I believe that a truly valuable artist must be an artist who realizes the impossibility of his task and then continues to do it.’ – Keith Jarrett

‘Art is free, but it is not a free-for-all.’ – Donald Judd

‘No museum was willing to exhibit my work, so I put it on public display in the street.’ – Isaiah Zagar

‘When nothing is valued for what it is, everything is destined to be wasted. – Wendell Berry

‘Form follows function – that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.’ – Frank Lloyd Wright

‘Paradises can only be made with our own hands, with our own creativity in harmony with the free creativity of nature.’ – Friedensreich Hundertwasser

‘An ordinary object [can be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.’ – Marcel Duchamp

‘If you don't see the joke in Duchamp's urinal, then you are apt to believe that, by putting something on display in that way, you can make your own contribution to the tradition of artistic expression: you can stand beside Michelangelo and Shakespeare and be as important as they.’ – Roger Scruton

'Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.' – Jane Jacobs

‘In the loss of skill, we lose stewardship; in losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the great neighborhood of Creation. It is possible - as our experience in this good land shows - to exile ourselves from Creation, and to ally ourselves with the principle of destruction - which is, ultimately, the principle of nonentity. It is to be willing in general for being to not-be. And once we have allied ourselves with that principle, we are foolish to think that we can control the results.’ – Wendell Berry

‘Destruction is also creation.’ – Marcel Duchamp

‘In architecture there is a part that is the result of logical reasoning and a part that is created through the senses. There is always a point where they clash. I don’t think architecture can be created without that collision.’ – Tadao Ando

'It is not worth it to use marble for what you don’t believe in, but it is worth it to use cinder blocks for that which you believe in.' – Louis Kahn

‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.’ – T.S. Eliot

‘Art should not be segregated in museums. It needs to live free among us.’ – Isaiah Zagar