Though I love the arts with all my heart - paintings, sculpture, theatre, and music - and think they are among the biggest achievements we humans can do, I am really convinced that architecture is among the most important.
Santiago CalatravaRead
Building a bridge, in my opinion, is a symbolic gesture, linked with the needs of people who cross over it, and with the idea of overcoming or surmounting obstacles. A modern bridge can also be a work of art. It helps to shape our daily lives and becomes a vital experience for all the people who use it.
Interpretation
A bridge symbolizes overcoming obstacles and serves as an essential part of daily life and art.
Santiago Calatrava highlights the multifaceted significance of a bridge, suggesting that it is not merely a physical structure but also a symbol of connection and resilience. Bridges serve practical needs for those who traverse them, but they also embody artistic expression, influencing how people interact with their environment and each other, ultimately enriching their lives.
In practice
This quote can inspire engineers and architects at a design presentation.
Though I love the arts with all my heart - paintings, sculpture, theatre, and music - and think they are among the biggest achievements we humans can do, I am really convinced that architecture is among the most important.
There is one way that architecture is superior to sculpture, and that is scale. You can walk into a building and have it all around you.
I paint and work as a sculptor, and I see architecture as an art... If you follow this approach you can use techniques to the service of man and to the service of an artistic idea, and beauty.
The architect works for so many years building it, and the moment you deliver it to the people is the moment when you are unnecessary.
When I work on sculpture, I don't have to worry about function. When I work on a piece of architecture, I must think about function all the time.
Architecture is one of the art forms best able to improve and revitalise cities both artistically and functionally.
The only logical thing I can think of is that I knew there were such things as artists, and I knew there were none where I lived. So I knew that to be an artist you had to be somewhere else. And I very much wanted to be somewhere else.
You should go from place to place recovering the poems that have been written for you to which you can affix your signature. Don't discuss these matters with anyone. Retrieve. Retrieve. When the basket is full someone will appear to whom you can present it.
This is the theory… that anything that is art… is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it’s irritating.
I was the only one in my family to be musically inclined, and my mother loved that. It encouraged my grand aunt to find me a music teacher, because it was quite obvious music was in me.
What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless.
I don't know if music can change the world overnight but I know that music can help someone make it through a difficult night.
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