There is still a real need for good quality architecture, not paper architecture, but the real stuff.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of practical and functional architecture over theoretical designs that lack substance.
Peter Zumthor's quote highlights the ongoing necessity for high-quality architecture that serves its purpose and positively impacts its environment. He distinguishes between 'good quality architecture' that is tangible and beneficial to people's lives, and 'paper architecture', which refers to theoretical designs that may look good on paper but fail to manifest in reality or fulfill their intended roles.
In practice
In a presentation about urban development, you might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of functional buildings.
If you look at the Earth without architecture, its sometimes a little bit unpleasant. So there is this basic human need to do shelter in the broadest sense of the word, whether its a movie theater or a simple log cabin in the mountains. This is the core of architecture: To provide a space for human beings.
In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.
I think the chance of finding beauty is higher if you don't work on it directly. Beauty in architecture is driven by practicality. This is what you learn from studying the old townscapes of the Swiss farmers.
Designing is a matter of concentration. You go deep into what you want to do. It's about intensive research, really. The concentration is warm and intimate and like the fire inside the earth - intense but not distorted. You can go to a place, really feel it in your heart. It's actually a beautiful feeling.
Architecture to me is whole. I cannot say I only care about this 25% and the other 75% I let go... it's just I want to work the way I want to work. In my shop, you can order certain things and other things you cannot. They are not available.
I design for the use of a building and the place and for the people who use it... the reputation for arrogance comes because when work is offered to me, I look whether I can find a genuine interest in quality.
When I take a black-and-white portrait, it's not particularly meant to please you. It's meant to talk to you; it's meant to shame you. It's meant to scream out at you, and it has a message.
One cannot create an art that speaks to men when one has nothing to say.
In my photography, I always lean towards the underprivileged because that's where I came from. When I went to the wars, I attempted to go and stand by those who were being trodden on. By that, I mean people like the Palestinians. When I go to India, I see really the poorest people, and I tend to be drawn to them.
What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.
The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.
[Short Talk on Sylvia Plath] Did you see her mother on television? She said plain, burned things. She said I thought it an excellent poem but it hurt me. She did not say jungle fear. She did not say jungle hatred wild jungle weeping chop it back chop it. She said self-government she said end of the road. She did not say humming in the middle of the air what you came for chop.
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