“You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.”
Thom Mayne“The age of recalcitrance is over. The best solution is no longer just to regurgitate a 19th-century design.”
Thom Mayne“I don't know any architects that I respect who don't have their own voice. I think the difference between architecture and the other arts is your immersion in reality.”
Thom Mayne“In architecture, you arrive so late. I look at doctors, lawyers I know, and they're all buying boats and bailing out at 62. My career is just getting started.”
Thom Mayne“I fought violently for the autonomy of architecture. It's a very passive, weak profession where people deliver a service. You want a blue door, you get a blue door. You want it to look neo-Spanish, you get neo-Spanish. Architecture with any authenticity represents resistance. Resistance is a good thing.”
Thom Mayne“Architecture is the beginning of something because it's - if you're not involved in first principles, if you're not involved in the absolute, the beginning of that generative process, it's cake decoration.”
Thom Mayne“You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.”
Thom Mayne“The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value.”
Thom Mayne“Do I provoke as a method of investigation? Of course. That's the essence of architecture. Do I do it with gusto? I do.”
Thom Mayne“Architecture is the story of how we see ourselves. It is the architect's job to service everyday life.”
Thom Mayne“Somehow, architecture alters the way we think about the world and the way we behave. Any serious architecture, as a litmus test, has to be that.”
Thom Mayne