Louis Kahn's Quotes

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.

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

Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.

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

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.

Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.

Architecture struck me between the eye and the eyeball.

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.

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

What does a house want to be?

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.

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.

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.'