Paola Antonelli Quotations

Beauty and usefulness alone were not enough to justify inclusion in this exhibition,

They're ironic statements on the absurdity of our fears.

Each object had to transcend the outcome of the equation of its form and function by displaying meaning -- to an individual, to a community, to the world at large -- and last but not least, ingenious beauty.

Heaven is satisfied curiosity.

Not all design is for the general good.

Life is tough; thank God there's design.

Designers need to be mavericks, because the best way to design a successful object is to pretend that either it never existed or that people will be able to have a new behavior with it.

Ugly design should be rejected, just like nonfunctional design is rejected, just like nonenvironmentally conscious design should be rejected. It's a value.

I consider video games a form of design that is amazingly important today and that is going to become even more important in the future, because it is a way we interact with machines and screens.

Small objects, like the Walkman first and then the iPod, create bubbles of space around us that enable us to have a metaphysical space that is much bigger than our physical space.

Beauty and elegance are a right, not a surplus... . We must demand, at least, intention.

Good design is a Renaissance attitude that combines tech, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something.

In an ideal world, social responsibility would be a prerequisite for design, and designers would vow to produce beautiful, useful, positive, responsible, functional, and economical things and concepts that are meaningful additions to—or sometimes subtractions from—the world we live in. Indeed, design deserves such thoughtful consideration.

While an artist can choose whether or not to be responsive and responsible towards other human beings, by definition a designer must be.

Be yourself, be in the moment, you’re going to be modern

The idea of being able to build things bottom up, atom by atom, has made [scientists] all into tinkerers. And all of a sudden scientists are seeking designers, just like designers are seeking scientists.

We live today not in the digital, not in the physical, but in the kind of minestrone that our mind makes of the two.

I want people to understand that design is so much more than cute chairs - that it is first and foremost everything that is around us in our life.

People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It's not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something that the world didn't know it was missing.

Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life. They’re able to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and society and convert those changes into objects and ideas that people can understand.

Designers may be the true intellectuals of the future.

Elegance in objects is everybody’s right, and it shouldn’t cost more than ugliness.