Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable. Louis Sullivan More Quotes by Louis Sullivan More Quotes From Louis Sullivan A proper building grows naturally, logically, and poetically out of all its conditions. Louis Sullivan conditions building grows To teach is to touch the heart and impel it to action. Louis Sullivan action heart teacher Form ever follows function. Louis Sullivan bad-ass badass design When you look on one of your contemporary 'good copies' of historical remains, ask yourself the question: Not what style, but in what civilization is this building? And the absurdity, vulgarity, anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion. Louis Sullivan fashion historical civilization The chief characteristics of the tall building is that it is lofty. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation so that from bottom to top it should be a unit without a single dissenting line. Louis Sullivan rising lines proud The architect who combines in his being the powers of vision, of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and time--- is he who shall create poems in stone. Louis Sullivan vision imagination needs Our architecture reflects truly as a mirror. Louis Sullivan architecture mirrors But the building's identity resided in the ornament. Louis Sullivan ornaments architecture identity Once you learn to look at architecture not merely as an art more or less well or more or less badly done, but as a social manifestation, the critical eye becomes clairvoyant. Louis Sullivan eye looks art How strange it seems that education, in practice, so often means suppression: that instead of leading the mind outward to the light of day it crowds things in upon it that darken and weary it. Louis Sullivan light practice mean An architect, to be a true exponent of his time, must possess first, last and always the sympathy, the intuition of a poet... this is the one real, vital principle that survives through all places and all times. Louis Sullivan intuition principles real It cannot for a moment be doubted that an art work to be alive, to awaken us to its life, to inspire us sooner or later with its purpose, must indeed be animate with a soul, must have been breathed upon by the spirit and must breathe in turn that spirit. Louis Sullivan healing inspire art In the history of mankind there are recorded two great Inversions. The first, set forth by the Nazarene to the effect that love is a greater power and more real than vengeance. The second proclaimed the earth to be a sphere revolving in its course around the sun. These affirmations were made in the face of all evidence sacred to the contrary. Louis Sullivan real love-is two It was the spirit animating the mass and flowing from it, and it expressed the individuality of the building. Louis Sullivan individuality design spirit Words are most malignant, the most treacherous possession of mankind. They are saturated with the sorrows of all time. Louis Sullivan mankind possession sorrow It is the mass dream of inverted self, populous with fears overt and secret, that forms the continuous but gossamer thread upon which are strung as phantom beads all civilizations from the remotest past of record to that of the present day and hour. Louis Sullivan self dream past What are books but folly, and what is an education but an arrant hypocrisy, and what is art but a curse when they touch not the heart and impel it not to action? Louis Sullivan hypocrisy book art Implicit in true freedom of spirit lies a proud and virile will. Such glorious power of free will to choose, envisages beneficent social responsibility as manifest and welcome. Louis Sullivan proud responsibility lying Happiness and depression cannot blossom on the same vine. Some people affirm their woes and beg for sympathy. Others, unfortunately, cast gloom wherever they go. These poor souls were born sick and tired. Louis Sullivan tired depression people An art of expression should begin with childhood, and the lucid use of one's mother tongue should be typical of that art. Louis Sullivan mother mean art
