Top 60 Arthur Erickson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us.”

— Arthur Erickson

2. “Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.”

— Arthur Erickson

3. “The delusion of entertainment is devoid of meaning. It may amuse us for a bit, but after the initial hit we are left with the dark feeling of desolation.”

— Arthur Erickson

4. “Rationalism is the enemy of art, though necessary as a basis for architecture.”

— Arthur Erickson

5. “Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.”

— Arthur Erickson

6. “Our incapacity to comprehend other cultures stems from our insistence on measuring things in our own terms.”

— Arthur Erickson

7. “Only when inspired to go beyond consciousness by some extraordinary insight does beauty manifest unexpectedly.”

— Arthur Erickson

8. “The heart, not the head, must be the guide.”

— Arthur Erickson

9. “Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place?”

— Arthur Erickson

10. “We can appreciate but not really understand the medieval town. We cannot comprehend its compactness, the contiguity of all its buildings as a single uninterrupted whole.”

— Arthur Erickson

11. “There is an increasing awareness of the interrelatedness of things. We are becoming less prone to accept an immediate solution without questioning its larger implications.”

— Arthur Erickson

12. “Tahiti has been spoiled for many years, but Bali is one of the few cultures with origins in one of the great ancient cultures which is still alive.”

— Arthur Erickson

13. “The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe.”

— Arthur Erickson

14. “We find Japan a little more difficult to understand because it has proven its 20th century prowess though the ancient traditions still persist.”

— Arthur Erickson

15. “Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it.”

— Arthur Erickson

16. “Part of our western outlook stems from the scientific attitude and its method of isolating the parts of a phenomenon in order to analyze them.”

— Arthur Erickson

17. “Modernism released us from the constraints of everything that had gone before with a euphoric sense of freedom.”

— Arthur Erickson

18. “Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.”

— Arthur Erickson

19. “Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.”

— Arthur Erickson

20. “We are not peddlers of the fashionable. We believe that good design defies fashion, is truly innovative, eminently sensible, yet a source of inspiration to those who have the pleasure of living with it.”

— Arthur Erickson

21. “The great dream merchant Disney was a success because make-believe was what everyone seemed to need in a spiritually empty land.”

— Arthur Erickson

22. “Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today.”

— Arthur Erickson

23. “I plead for conservation of human culture, which is much more fragile than nature herself. We needn’t destroy other cultures with the force of our own.”

— Arthur Erickson

24. “The Renaissance is studded by the names of the artists and architects, with their creations recorded as great historical events.”

— Arthur Erickson

25. “With production alone as the goal, industry in North America was dominated by the assembly line, standardization for mass consumption.”

— Arthur Erickson

26. “The essentially unchangeable established order of things slowly disappeared and was forgotten for a while completely.”

— Arthur Erickson

27. “Life is rich, always changing, always challenging, and we architects have the task of transmitting into wood, concrete, glass and steel, of transforming human aspirations into habitable and meaningful space.”

— Arthur Erickson

28. “God’s designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the self-made men, who take the credit.”

— Arthur Erickson

29. “The obsession with performance left no room for the development of the intuitive or spiritual impact of space and form other than the aesthetic of the machine itself.”

— Arthur Erickson

30. “Profit and bottom line, the contemporary mantra, eliminates the very source of architectural expression.”

— Arthur Erickson

31. “Materialism has never been so ominous as now in North America, as management takes over.”

— Arthur Erickson

32. “There is a single thread of attitude, a single direction of flow, that joins our present time to its early burgeoning in Mediterranean civilization.”

— Arthur Erickson

33. “Our settlement of land is without regard to the best use of land.”

— Arthur Erickson

34. “Inspiration in Science may have to do with ideas, but not in Art. In art it is in the senses that are instinctively responsive to the medium of expression.”

— Arthur Erickson

35. “The Achilles Heel of the Americas was the lack of cultural confidence typical of new settlers.”

— Arthur Erickson

36. “No phenomenon can be isolated, but has repercussions through every aspect of our lives. We are learning that we are a fundamental part of nature’s ecosystems.”

— Arthur Erickson

37. “Today’s developer is a poor substitute for the committed entrepreneur of the last century for whom the work of architecture represented a chance to celebrate the worth of his enterprise.”

— Arthur Erickson

38. “The innovative spirit was America’s strongest attribute, transforming everything into a brave new world, but there lingered an insecurity about the arts.”

— Arthur Erickson

39. “Nowhere has specialization penetrated so deeply into the building professions as North America.”

— Arthur Erickson

40. “Compared to industry in Europe or Japan, where industry was based on a craft tradition, we are sadly behind.”

— Arthur Erickson

41. “What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.”

— Arthur Erickson

42. “The way of architecture is the quiet voice that underlies it and has guided it from the beginning.”

— Arthur Erickson

43. “We regard those other cultures, such as that of India, where many people live and believe and behave much as they did 1,000 or 2,000 years ago, as undeveloped.”

— Arthur Erickson

44. “No wonder the film industry started in the desert in California where, like all desert dwellers, they dream their buildings, rather than design them.”

— Arthur Erickson

45. “The details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line.”

— Arthur Erickson

46. “The tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before.”

— Arthur Erickson

47. “Builders eventually took advantage of the look of modernism to build cheaply and carelessly.”

— Arthur Erickson

48. “Nearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad.”

— Arthur Erickson

49. “Our engineering departments build freeways which destroy a city or a landscape, in the process.”

— Arthur Erickson

50. “In those countries with centuries of a craft tradition behind their building methods, techniques are tightly coordinated under the direction of the architect.”

— Arthur Erickson