Louis Kahn

The first thing that an architect must do is to sense that every building you build is a world of its own, and that this world of its own serves an institution.

What does a house want to be?

You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?' And brick says to you, 'I like an arch.' And you say to brick, 'Look, I want one, too, but arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel.' And then you say: 'What do you think of that, brick?' Brick says: 'I like an arch.'

In a small room one does not say what one would in a large room.

A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.

Architecture appears for the first time when the sunlight hits a wall. The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall.

A great building must begin with the unmeasurable must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.

Architecture is what nature cannot make. Architecture is something unnatural but not something made up.

Architecture struck me between the eye and the eyeball.

Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.

Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.

Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of architecture that belongs to his college, it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul.

A room is not a room without natural light.

The street is a room by agreement.

The person of old had the same brilliance of mind that we assume we have now. But that which made a thing become manifest for the first time is our great moment of creative happening.

I try to create homes, not houses.

The crocodile must want to be a crocodile for reasons of the crocodile.

How precious a book is in light of the offering, in the light of the one who has the privilege of this offering. The library tells you of this offering.

Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.

Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.

Every building must have... its own soul.

If people want to see Beaux-Arts, it's fine with me. I'm interested in good architecture as anybody else.