Arne Jacobsen Quotations

If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.

Proportions are what makes the old Greek temples classic in their beauty. They are like huge blocks, from which the air has been literally hewn out between the columns.

Architecture tends to consume everything else, it has become one's entire life.

When I travel, I draw and paint sketches which is great fun. And as long as you are fully aware that it has nothing to do with actual art, I think that's all right.

In a way, the sense of quality has improved, the status symbol of the small things is gone, and it is acceptable to use stainless steel, even if the neighbour uses silver.

I don't see that any buildings should be excluded from the term architecture, as long as they are done properly.

Besides, I think that when one has been through a boarding school, especially then, you have some resistance, because it was both fine comradeship and a fairly hard training.

I am going to be working on bathroom fittings for a company in the USA, and then I thought it was appropriate to simplify the fittings and, thus, lowering the cost.

With a painter or a sculptor, one cannot begin to alter his works, but an architect has to put up with anything, because he makes utility objects - the building is there to be used, and times change.

On the other hand, I don't understand the enthusiasm for everything in the antique shop that Grandma threw out. There, the sense of quality has declined; otherwise Grandma wouldn't have thrown it out

Furniture manufacturing in plastics requires very costly machinery, which the Danish market is not big enough to justify. Or so they say. But show me a plastics manufacturer who dares to take on the experiment

That business of relaxation, which is so terribly modern today, is all good and well, but my work interests me so much, and is so varied, that many times it seems relaxing when I go from one aspect to another.

Almost every time I make a building, some people will condemn it straight to Hell.

But I think that parents who criticise their children too much are in fact better than parents who praise their children too much.

You will soon find that I am a bit obsessive about my work. And that is a little sad, one often feels strangely restricted, not finding time to simmer, although one actually has many interests.

People buy a chair, and they don't really care who designed it.

Now, the downside to conservation is that so much is done for the public, which almost always mars the environment that one wanted to conserve.

That is the artistic task: To choose the best from these solutions.

If architecture had nothing to do with art, it would be astonishingly easy to build houses, but the architect's task - his most difficult task - is always that of selecting.

None of us has invented the house; that was done many thousands of years ago

But inspiration? - That's when you come home from abroad and are asked: Well, have you found inspiration? - and fortunately you haven't. But the impressions sink in, of course, and may emerge later: None of us has invented the house; that was done many thousands of years ago.

The primary factor is proportions.

A pastry usually tastes better if it looks nice. A cream pastry, now that looks nice - in fact, there is nothing I mind as long as it looks nice.

Carrying out the thing, getting it to the point when one might say: There, now it is good - that point is hard to reach. Often, one sets very high goals for oneself. Perhaps too high.

I have no philosophy, my favourite thing is sitting in the studio.

I do not feel certain until I have confronted my initial solution with other solutions - although in fact the first solution often proves to be the right one.

It may sound affected - but it is the act of creation itself, and it is equally exhilarating whether one is working on a teaspoon or a national bank.

In addressing a task, one almost always has several possible options, sometimes only a few, and they may all be practical and functional. But they lack the aesthetic aspect that raises it to architecture.

There is always a point when one senses ones lack of skill, the doubt

And when an architect has designed a house with large windows, which is a necessity today in order to pull the daylight into these very deep houses, then curtains come to play a big role in architecture.

Clearly, if a building is not functionally and technically in order, then it isn't architecture either, it's just a building.