Ben van Berkel Quotations

My mother took me to Venice one time and showed me all the houses where famous composers used to live. It gave me a fascination for music and the city, but also for architecture. It was a valuable lesson.

I never show the back of my tongue. That is a Dutch expression.

You could never hide yourself in these places - in Mies's Farnsworth house, for example. That was a mistake of Modernism. People need places to hide from each other, too. You need everything.

That's what I love about Chicago... It is the staccato aspect of the skyscrapers. But the ground is very loose, very relaxed. It makes Chicago far more pleasant than other cities.

In the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright - and you can also see it with Mies - they make new ground by raising the ground. Frank Lloyd Wright did it so beautifully with the Robie House. The roof becomes almost a new ground.

Ideas can come while reading a good novel.

Architecture falls between art and airports. It's pragmatic-it helps you get from point A to point B. But it also works as art. It makes you think twice. It inspires you. It brings you back to yourself.