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We have been posting a new quote on our website every month for years: thoughts, song lines, excerpts from poems from the vast, rich cultural space of humanity – the space to which we dedicate our work.
Here, all previous quotes are collected, some in a more detailed version, with the latest at the top. The translations are done by us.
In this concrete world full of souls / The angels play on their horns all day. / The whole earth in progression seems to pass by / But does anyone hear the music they play? / Does anyone even try?
You don’t rest, but realize that you have to keep looking.
Non acquiescit sed invenit quod ulterius querat.
If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.
“Cement that dries underwater,” he said to Musa when he came back. “Now that is a miracle.”
There is no greater expanse than the one we live in.
Es gibt keine grössere Weite als die, welche wir leben.
True generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.
Die wahre Grosszügigkeit gegenüber der Zukunft besteht darin, der Gegenwart alles zu geben.
Without the suspension of the living, love ends.
Do not work from your own past, but create from the customer’s future.
The number of brand creators still far outweighs the small number of brand cultivators, people who understand brands as natural products.
You can kill a person with an apartment just as well as with an axe.
We sense the material, insofar as the atmosphere that materials radiate, enters into our state of being. We sense the presence of materials by finding ourselves in a certain way in their presence.
He who understands nothing but chemistry does not truly understand that either.
Wer nichts als Chemie versteht, versteht auch die nicht recht.
Everything that surrounds human beings is understood by them as life and spirit that have objectified themselves within it.
Alles, was den Menschen umgibt, wird von ihm verstanden als Leben und Geist, die sich darin objektiviert haben.
Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as consistent with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters.
How things look is one thing, but how they feel to live with is quite another.
The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.
The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.
The present is not a continuation of the past. It is the moment of choice and action.
Le présent n’est pas un passé en puissance, il est le moment du choix et de l’action.
We encounter life as living beings; it does not arise, but is already there, it does not begin, for it has already begun. At the beginning of every life science is not the beginning of life itself; rather, science begins with the awakening of questioning in the midst of life.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
We want to address the energy issue more comprehensively. Mere energy saving is not enough for us. Buildings should energize their users.
Building is a matter with considerable psychological depth effects.
The history of concrete is nothing more than a human story. The story of an idea, multiplied by the practice of inventors, manipulators, calculators, draftsmen and artists…
L’histoire du béton n’est autre chose qu’une histoire humaine. L’histoire d’une idée, démultipliée par la pratique des inventeurs, des manipulateurs, des calculateurs, des dessinateurs, des artistes…
Scientists and laypeople alike derive a large part of their conception of creative scientific activity from a single authoritative source, which systematically obscures the existence and significance of scientific revolutions.
Although interest in the natural sciences increased in the sixteenth century and spread among the relatively less educated, paradoxically, a parallel influence on the learned world was not discernible.
Perhaps the true revolutions, those that actually transform our perception of the world, do not take place in full public view, but rather in the night sky of thought, silently and almost unnoticed by the slumbering masses who devote themselves to their daily tasks.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?
Sag mir, was planst du zu tun / mit deinem einen, wilden und kostbaren Leben?
As much as change is about adapting to the new, it is about detaching from the old.
So sehr es bei Veränderungen darum geht, sich an das Neue anzupassen, so sehr geht es um die Ablösung vom Alten.
When we realize that the project of healing is greater than the hospital, then research begins between architecture and society.
Places and spaces nourish us like a flowing spring when they give us what we need to unfold our lives.
Concrete has the ability to enrage people like no other building material.
There‘s more to the picture / than meets the eye.
A building per se is a parasite. It claims space, clings to electricity, water, gas, and all systems of the city. This parasite must be transformed into a symbiont; only then can we talk about good architecture and a functioning community.
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate. So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.
To inhabit the world poetically or to inhabit the world humanely, in essence, it’s the same thing.
Habiter poétiquement le monde ou habiter humainement le monde, au fond, c’est la même chose.
For my sight became purer, / and penetrated deeper and deeper through the ray / of the high light that is true in itself. / From then on my seeing was greater / than our speech which yields before such a vision, / and memory fails before such an abundance.
Chè la mia vista, venendo sincera, / e più e più intrava per lo raggio / dell’alta luce che da sè è vera. / Da quinci innanzi il mio veder fu maggio / che ‘l parlar nostro, ch’a tal vista cede, / e cede la memoria a tanto oltraggio.
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are those who actually do it.
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some of us may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world… are the ones who do.
There is, all around us, / this country / of original fire.
The lamented nervousness or lethargy of our schoolchildren prevails wherever they encounter cool abstraction instead of warm life processes.
Draw near to Him, the living stone.
And when I drank myself / and my firstborn land / the earthquakes rocked, / I was awakened to see.
Then life fell upon me. / There the stone is not dead. / The wick springs up, / when a glance ignites it.
Whoever wants to build tall towers must linger long at the foundation.
Show me how you build, and I will tell you who you are.
All great things begin with a free thought.
Everything new that takes place on Earth must be carried out by humans.
The first three dimensions postulate space, the fourth is time, and the fifth is the immeasurable realm of cosmic awareness – it is about knowledge, insight, ideas, appreciation, compassion, and connectivity. It is the dimension that is the hardest to describe and achieve but the easiest to enjoy.
Everything living forms an atmosphere around itself.
A thought cannot awaken without awakening others.
Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.
From a certain point on, there is no turning back. This point must be reached.
One is not realistic by having no idea.
Invisible bridges span / from you to people and things / from the air to your breath // Speak with flowers / as with people / whom you love // Live in the breath house / a human flower time
The world economy has entered a new, long cycle – the sixth Kondratieff cycle. Its driving force is the health economy, with its basic innovations being biotechnology and psychosocial health.
Wanderer, your tracks are the path and nothing more; Wanderer there is no path – the path is made by walking. By walking one makes the path and when looking back one sees the trail that must never be trodden again. Wanderer there is no path but only wake in the sea.
Caminante, son tus huellas / el camino, y nada más; / Caminante, no hay camino, / se hace camino al andar. / Al andar se hace camino, / y al volver la vista atrás / se ve la senda que nunca / se ha de volver a pisar. / Caminante, no hay camino, / sino estelas en la mar.
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?
But for those who walk with a pure heart, nothing can ever stand in their way again.
Embark on a massive, ridiculous project, just like Noah. It doesn’t matter at all what people think of you.
The fundamental question is not how to be the best, but rather how to offer something unique.
The fundamental question is not how to be the best, it’s actually how to deliver something unique.
Space exists only in relation to a movement conceived as living.
In order to live in the world, one must establish it.
The Seven Blunders of the World: Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principle.
Mental comfort is more important than physical.
They will come, your people, Nature! A rejuvenated nation will also rejuvenate you.
Philosophers assume that facts generate ideas, and in a certain sense this is also true; but I find in the history of natural research that in order to understand a fact, one must already have certain ideas in one’s head, and that the eyes see nothing that has not been thought beforehand in the mind.
Come, my friends, / ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Come, my friends, / ‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Innovations are scientific results packaged in a form ready to be adopted by users.
To be human means: to be mortal on earth, means: to dwell.
Science manipulates things and gives up inhabiting them.
La science manipule les choses et renonce à les habiter.
It is not the brain that defines a human being, but the totality of all organs. Consequently, it follows that cultural evolution can only be fulfilled if the entire organism is involved in this evolutionary process. (…) The organism is the subject of technology. The coming civilization is either a womb or a grave.
We can no longer live off nature, as it is sick in many parts. It needs help. We see the efforts to bring “life” into architecture as a task for the future.
With one’s birth, one signs a contract with their species, their village, their family, and their friends. The first line in this contract states that one must help to create a better world.
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
A pile of stones ceases to be a pile of stones as soon as a single person contemplates it with the inner image of a cathedral.
Un tas de pierres cesse d‘être un tas de pierres, dès qu’un seul homme le contemple avec, en lui, l’image d’une cathédrale.
You cannot expect the customer to imagine whether a solution that does not yet exist will bring them benefits. This imaginative performance is the task of the developer.
Looking sounds banal, but it is difficult. All people look, but not all of them see something.
It is not perfect stagnation that brings happiness, but the creation of something new. Everything can be improved.
One must do something new in order to see something new.
If our societal world is not to break apart, industry must produce philosophers and philosophies.
Factors such as square meter or energy consumption can be measured well. However, this does not apply to social aspects, comfort factors, design and social sustainability. A planner must put their finger on exactly those points.
The violent exploitation of nature has reduced the true wealth of man to a marginal activity: his ability to recreate himself by recreating the world.
L’exploitation violente de la nature a réduit à une activité marginale la vraie richesse de l’homme: la capacité de se recréer en recréant le monde.
We all share the same responsibility: make our planet great again.
Everything that makes us accept life is good. Everything that makes us reject it is inferior and temporary.
Tout ce qui fait accepter la vie est bon. Tout ce qui nous la fait refuser est médiocre et provisoire.
I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.
Error is simpler than the truth.
Error veritate simplicior.
The essence of good is: to preserve life, to promote life, to raise life to its highest value.
I fight for Christ, against pollution and against concrete.
Io mi batto per Cristo e contro l’inquinamento e il cemento.
To investigate living things, one must participate in life.
Those who do not put themselves in danger – will perish within it.
Science without conscience is the ruin of the soul.
Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme.
Behold, I make all things new!
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world… are the ones who do.
Newton explained to you (…) why an apple fell; but he never thought of explaining the exactly correlative, but infinitely more difficult question, how the apple got up there!
If you want to move forward quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go with friends.
We must rediscover the original pact between the spirit and the world, right in the midst of the civilization in which we live.
Il faut retrouver le pacte originel entre l’esprit et le monde dans la civilisation même où nous vivons.
Regarding construction, Churchill said in Parliament on October 28, 1944: “First we shape our buildings, then they shape us.” If this is true – and I am convinced of it – then the question arises: in what kind of world do we want to live tomorrow? We decide it today.
Only he who permanently enriches humanity by increasing its knowledge of itself and enhancing its creative consciousness.
Your limit of mind is not the end of the world.
It is certainly valuable for a person to have a heart and not just thoughts. But the most valuable thing is when thoughts have a heart.
Suppose the heart of the Earth were made of gold, this heart has not yet been found as such and only then has its goodness when it finally beats in sync with the hearts of technology.
Do you think it is a small thing to know life? It is not only a great thing, but the greatest of all.
Penses-tu que ce soit là une petite chose que savoir vivre? Non seulement une grande, mais la plus grande.
Companies know more about us, but we also know more about the companies. It is no longer enough for them to create good designs; they must design by doing good. And that means incorporating “ethics” as the core of their business strategy.
Las compañias saben más de nosotros, pero nosotros sabemos más de las compañias. Ya no basta con que diseñen bien, tienen que diseñar haciendo el bien. Y eso significa incorporar la “ética” como núcleo de su estrategia de negocio.
Ideas that can be put in a nutshell should stay there.
Already surrounded by this mad city the caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon which institutionalizes him. He can no longer see past his own thoughts. He’s trapped. / When trapped inside these walls certain ideas start to take roots, such as going home, and bringing back new concepts to this mad city. The result? Wings begin to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant. / Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations that the caterpillar never considered, ending the internal struggle.
It is time that one knows!
It is time for the stone to consent to bloom,
for unrest to beat a heart.
It is time for it to be time.
If an entrepreneur does not love the world and his fellow human beings, he will not be successful in the long run.
One thing of which we can be certain is that as culture changes, so will concrete.
A tree that falls,
makes more noise,
than an entire forest,
that grows.
Discard the stone of today,
forget and sleep. If it’s light,
tomorrow you’ll find it again,
before the dawn, turned into sun.
Tira la piedra de hoy,
olvida y duerme. Si es luz,
mañana la encontrarás,
ante la aurora, hecha sol.
Life must be somewhere to be found
instead of concrete jungle where the living is harder.
Concrete jungle, man you’ve got to do your best!
The materials of architects, our materials. We know them all. And yet we do not know them. To design, to invent architectures, we must learn to consciously deal with them. This is research work.
Where there is love
an eye opens.
Ubi amor
ibi oculus.
Where nothing works anymore, everything begins.
The Stone Age came to an end, not because the world ran out of stones.
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn’t violate too many of Newton’s laws!