We are not peddlers of the fashionable. We believe that good design defies fashion, is truly innovative, eminently sensible, yet a source of inspiration to those who have the pleasure of living with it.
Arthur EricksonThere is an increasing awareness of the interrelatedness of things. We are becoming less prone to accept an immediate solution without questioning its larger implications.
Arthur EricksonWe find Japan a little more difficult to understand because it has proven its 20th century prowess though the ancient traditions still persist.
Arthur EricksonThe way of architecture is the quiet voice that underlies it and has guided it from the beginning.
Arthur EricksonAncient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.
Arthur EricksonPart of our western outlook stems from the scientific attitude and its method of isolating the parts of a phenomenon in order to analyze them.
Arthur EricksonInspiration in Science may have to do with ideas, but not in Art. In art it is in the senses that are instinctively responsive to the medium of expression.
Arthur EricksonThe great dream merchant Disney was a success because make-believe was what everyone seemed to need in a spiritually empty land.
Arthur EricksonDoes an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place in all this? Unfortunately we are no longer the interpreters of our culture's myths but the followers of that dubious client, the developer, who has little patience with the art of architecture, the fine detail and obscure promise, which can upset his financial activity.
Arthur EricksonWe are guilty for sending teams into foreign countries to advise them how to be like us.
Arthur EricksonWe regard those other cultures such as that of India, where many people live and believe and behave much as they did 1000 or 2000 years ago - as "undeveloped".
Arthur EricksonWe are stymied by regulations, limited choice and the threat of litigation. Neither consultants nor industry itself provide research which takes architecture forward.
Arthur EricksonGreat buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.
Arthur EricksonIt is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.
Arthur EricksonThe Renaissance is studded by the names of the artists and architects, with their creations recorded as great historical events.
Arthur EricksonBankers cannot afford to be concerned with only the economic aspects of projects. There may be serious implications on the natural environment, the urban environment, on human culture.
Arthur EricksonOnly when inspired to go beyond consciousness by some extraordinary insight does beauty manifest unexpectedly.
Arthur EricksonRoman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today.
Arthur EricksonWhat is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.
Arthur EricksonWe can appreciate but not really understand the medieval town. We cannot comprehend its compactness, the contiguity of all its buildings as a single uninterrupted whole.
Arthur EricksonThere is a single thread of attitude, a single direction of flow, that joins our present time to it's early burgeoning in Mediterranean civilization...
Arthur EricksonNearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad.
Arthur EricksonToday's developer is a poor substitute for the committed entrepreneur of the last century for whom the work of architecture represented a chance to celebrate the worth of his enterprise.
Arthur EricksonIn those countries with centuries of a craft tradition behind their building methods, techniques are tightly coordinated under the direction of the architect.
Arthur EricksonWith production alone as the goal, industry in North America was dominated by the assembly line, standardization for mass consumption.
Arthur EricksonProfit and bottom line, the contemporary mantra, eliminates the very source of architectural expression.
Arthur EricksonThe delusion of entertainment is devoid of meaning. It may amuse us for a bit, but after the initial hit we are left with the dark feeling of desolation.
Arthur EricksonGod's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the "self-made men", who take the credit.
Arthur EricksonBuilders eventually took advantage of the look of modernism to build cheaply and carelessly.
Arthur EricksonCompared to industry in Europe or Japan, where industry was based on a craft tradition, we are sadly behind.
Arthur EricksonOur engineering departments build freeways which destroy a city or a landscape, in the process.
Arthur EricksonNowhere has specialization penetrated so deeply into the building professions as North America.
Arthur EricksonThe tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before.
Arthur EricksonThe innovative spirit was America's strongest attribute, transforming everything into a brave new world, but there lingered an insecurity about the arts.
Arthur EricksonNo wonder the film industry started in the desert in California where, like all desert dwellers, they dream their buildings, rather than design them.
Arthur EricksonYou have to see a building to comprehend it. Photographs cannot convey the experience, nor film.
Arthur EricksonMaterialism has never been so ominous as now in North America, as management takes over.
Arthur Erickson