The skyscraper and the twentieth century are synonymous; the tall building is the landmark of our age.Shaper of cities and fortunes, it is the dream, past and present, acknowledged or unacknowledged, of almost every architect.
ADA LOUISE HUXTABLEUntil the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance
More Ada Louise Huxtable Quotes
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Waiting is a large part of living. Great, passive, negative chunks of our time are consumed by waiting, from birth to death.
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Who’s afraid of the big, bad buildings? Everyone, because there are so many things about gigantism that we just don’t know.
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All autonomous agencies and authorities, sooner or later, turn into self-perpetuating strongholds of conventional thought and practice.
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If you will; they are places for doing nothing and they have no life of their own. … their one constant is what might be called a decorative rigor mortis.
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. Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean.
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The skyscraper is the point where art and the city meet.
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The New York Hilton is laid out with a competence that would make a computer blush.
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Every generation tailors history to its taste.
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Some people wait constructively; they read or knit. I have watched some truly appalling pieces of needlework take form. Others – I am one of them – abandon all thought and purpose to an uneasy vegetative states.
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Beauty or beast, the modern skyscraper is a major force with a strong magnetic field. It draws into its physical being all of the factors that propel and characterize modern civilization.
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The art of decoration requires the most sophisticated and self-indulgent skills. Its aim has always been to sate the senses as gloriously as possible. … ornament is not only a source of sensuous pleasure
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Tossed into the Secaucus graveyard are about 25 centuries of classical culture and the standards of style, elegance and grandeur that it gave to the dreams and constructions of Western man.
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Every age cuts and pastes history to suit its own purposes; art always has an ax to grind.
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Until the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance
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In Paris style is everything. That is traditionally understood. Every street, every structure, every shopgirl has style.
ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE