Thom Mayne Architect Quotations

Architecture is a result of a process of asking questions and testing them and re-interrogating and changing in a repetitive way.

Architecture is a negotiated art, and it's highly political, and if you want to make buildings, there is diplomacy required.

I've always been interested in an architecture of resistance - architecture that has some power over the way we live. Working under adversarial conditions could be seen as a plus because you're offering alternatives. Still, there are situations that make you ask the questions: 'Do I want to be a part of this?'

Architecture is the story of how we see ourselves. It is the architect's job to service everyday life.

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.

I think all good architecture should challenge you, make you start asking questions. You don't have to understand it. You may not like it. That's OK.

But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.

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.

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.

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.

Architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.

My buildings don't speak in words but by means of their own spaciousness.

But often it's doubtful whether the logic of the work itself and the words used to describe it really have anything to do with each other.

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.

Who I am as an architect and the history of my work - that's clear to anybody who hires me. But I come in literally with nothing in my brain about what the building will look like.

I believe that artistic activities change people. You do effect change. I see architecture as a political, social and cultural act - that is its primary role.

Although the private cannot be substantiated by common logic, you have to find a workable logic in which to argue on behalf of the work.

I think a lot of people have the Frank Lloyd Wright model in their brains. The architect comes in with this act of creation and lays it down, and that's it. But that's not me.