Architecture as a profession is one of the most challenging jobs one can pursue. As a student of architecture, you don’t face the real challenges that lie within this career.
It is when you complete your degrees and step out in the real world of architecture that you realise it’s way more than just scaling diagrams, beams and columns. That the designing difficulties that make you doubt your career and insecurities that surround your outputs. It is in these moments of doubts that some insights from the most established architects from across the globe, can provoke the positivity and help us see through the hurdles.
Some of such sayings and suggestions can be found below :
“Find something you believe in.” – Norman Foster
“Beauty is the peak of functionality! If something is beautiful, it is functional. I don’t separate beauty and functionality. Beauty is the key functionality for architects… I wonder how I could say that beauty was not of interest to me… Perhaps someone provoked me by saying that I am an aestheticist. I am not that. But a search for beauty should be the number one preoccupation of any architect.” – Álvaro Siza
“The challenge with architecture is to move from the specificity of the problem to the ambiguity of the question.” – Alejandro Aravena
“For me, architecture is about changing the way people are interconnected. That’s the most exciting part of architecture. I think of architecture as a system; how you set up various opportunities for people to relate to one another, and to be empowered. What are the opportunities for people to interact? How can buildings spark new relationships? This could be through spaces or materials, both old and new, low or high technologies, I pull from everything to find what works best.” Jeanne Gang
“We must build spaces that do not create barriers.” Francis Kéré
“Architects have to be part of society, but we are outsiders.” César Pelli
“I used to teach the final year of the design studio. I would not try to influence the students too much because they were almost professional architects themselves. Of course, they think they know everything, but the reality is that no one knows anything. But a good teacher has to act like he knows. Confidence is very important, not only knowledge. Every problem requires thinking, not readymade solutions. You know that you don’t know, but there is an urgency to do something. You have to discover the knowledge – that’s the whole point.” – Paulo Mendes da Rocha
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