Quote Of The Week


Why do we love to recite quotes? Today quoting famous lines or phrases from movies is a major part of popular culture and American culture. Whether atf the workplace, in school or simply out with friends and family, quoting those who are funnier and more clever is both cultural acceptable and amusing. We believe quotes are so popular because they offer us simple phrases that give us the perception of understanding more complex concepts. Before movie quotes the cliché was all the rage. If you lacked definition or understanding of a problem, remember “it is what it is.” Don’t know what the facade of your design is missing, remember “less is more.”

Architects and other professionals often misuse quotations as a tool for self justification of something that they don’t understand.  As architects one of the most difficult processes that we must undertake is the distillation of an architectural solution that can be summarized by a few simple concepts which enables the designer to understand what would normally be a very complex problem. In literary writing this is done using simple tools such as the plot, theme, symbolism or metaphors to guide the author as the story develops.

Quotes are a lot like poetry, there is context, content and meaning that must be unpacked from them in order to understand the full meaning behind the speaker’s words.  Reciting an aphorism like, “less is more” is merely a shallow statement unless one understands the context within which Ludwig Mies van der Rohe spoke these words and the philosophy behind his architecture.  The Quote Of The Week seeks to not only highlight quotes that architects should be familiar with, but to explain, expand and extract the meanings that are often unknown to those who recite them. If one practices and learns to exctract meaning from simple phrases or aphorisms, it then becomes simpler for one to distill and compact the complex into a simple form or phrase, which can then be used to explain your design solution to those that are not as intimately familiar with your philosophy or design.