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It's my goal to make a building as immaterial as possible. Architecture is a very material thing. It takes a lot of resources, so why not eliminate what you don't need as long as you're able to achieve the same result?

Helmut Jahn
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You don't know what the Chinese expect in the way of beauty. The presentation is just a farce. You come into a room filled with 50 people and they don't talk to you. There's very little interaction.
Helmut Jahn
You'd never think of taking a cab if you had to walk a mile down Chicago's Michigan Avenue. But in a bad city you take a cab just to go around the corner.
Helmut Jahn
For me, though, the fun is over when I get the job.
Helmut Jahn
Most architects say: I want to use this type of glass, even if it's too reflective or doesn't let enough light in. However, the use of a certain type of glass might change the comfort level.
Helmut Jahn
In Europe, architects consider themselves artists. They think they're special when they win a competition.
Helmut Jahn
The American attitude towards efficiency and execution should always underlie architecture.
Helmut Jahn
We want our buildings to work like a machine that will create a pleasurable environment.
Helmut Jahn
America has always imported history.
Helmut Jahn
When I think of some of my earlier work, it really seems a fortunate coincidence that I succeeded.
Helmut Jahn
I've never looked at a suburban building as being a minor building and an urban building as being a major building.
Helmut Jahn
I strive for an architecture from which nothing can be taken away.
Helmut Jahn
In Europe, they're more demanding, the ones that rent the build ings.
Helmut Jahn
A building is hard to judge. It takes many years to find out whether it works. It's not as simple as asking the people in the office whether they like it.
Helmut Jahn
Sometimes I have to accept a job I don't really want. Hardly anybody comes up to you with a commission; it's all competitions these days.
Helmut Jahn
Every building is a prototype. No two are alike.
Helmut Jahn
Higher ceilings allow the use indirect lighting, which is much healthier and reduces glare.
Helmut Jahn
Creativity has more to do with the elimination of the inessential than with inventing something new.
Helmut Jahn
We are creating a unique experience. It's starts with how you see the building from a distance.
Helmut Jahn
A city building, you experience when you walk; a suburban building, you experience when you drive.
Helmut Jahn
Critics are entitled to have an opinion, but how can they judge how comfortable a building is? No critic is smart enough to judge how a building will perform over time.
Helmut Jahn
We prefer synthetic rather than natural materials. Natural products are almost too valuable. Wood is much harder to produce than metal. And metal is recyclable, while wood isn't.
Helmut Jahn
I think the younger generation, the people poised to dominate the workforce, are more socially conscious. They are more demanding in terms of environment and how that environment contributes to their life.
Helmut Jahn
German and English firms operate internationally, while French firms do not. The only place where they all have work is in China. Anybody can sell himself in China!
Helmut Jahn
Transparency is not the same as looking straight through a building: it's not just a physical idea, it's also an intellectual one.
Helmut Jahn
A good engineer thinks in reverse and asks himself about the stylistic consequences of the components and systems he proposes.
Helmut Jahn
It's my goal to make a building as immaterial as possible. Architecture is a very material thing. It takes a lot of resources, so why not eliminate what you don't need as long as you're able to achieve the same result?
Helmut Jahn
When I came to America in the '60s, it was the place to be. I wonder if I'd come here today.
Helmut Jahn
The architecture profession has lost a lot of its integrity, especially in the USA. The general architect here has no scruples, no ambitions.
Helmut Jahn
Chinese buildings are like American buildings, with big footprints. People don't care about daylight or fresh air.
Helmut Jahn
I wanted to improve the suburban office building; to create a great urban space in a suburban environment with all that implies about interaction, collaboration and creativity.
Helmut Jahn
For me, drawing generates thinking and vice versa.
Helmut Jahn
I find if my body feels well and I exercise regularly, I think better, work better and feel better.
Helmut Jahn
I think there will be a 200-story skyscraper someday. However, it will require a developer who will not think in conventional terms and for whom economic restraints won't apply.
Helmut Jahn
IBM has a very solid business image.
Helmut Jahn
Success on one project does not necessarily mean success in the next project. You've got to be prepared in everything you do.
Helmut Jahn
When I work, I work very hard. When I don't work, I have to do something where my endeavor can totally take me off what I do professionally, like sailing. It takes all your attention.
Helmut Jahn
Working is actually a pleasure. It's just very time-consuming. It's a way of life. I find that I can work when I travel and work when I run. There is nothing like, on a rainy day, to work.
Helmut Jahn
A building is hard to judge. It takes many years to find out whether it works. Its not as simple as asking the people in the office whether they like it.
Helmut Jahn
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.
Arne Jacobsen
People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course, that's both liberating and alarming.
Rem Koolhaas
The organizational architecture is really that a centipede walks on hundred legs and one or two don't count. So if I lose one or two legs, the process will go on, the organization will go on, the growth will go on.
Mukesh Ambani
The intellectual architecture means focusing on doing great work instead of focusing on agency politics.
Jay Chiat
Architecture is not an inspirational business, it's a rational procedure to do sensible and hopefully beautiful things; that's all.
Harry Seidler
The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe.
Arthur Erickson
Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Butler
All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
My interest in architecture has always been sculptural. Most of my photography is of architecture.
Parker Stevenson
I see architecture not as Gropius did, as a moral venture, as truth, but as invention, in the same way that poetry or music or painting is invention.
Michael Graves