Urban Planning Quotes

A city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time

It is not an individual act, architecture. You have to consider your client. Only out of that can you produce great architecture. You cannot work in the abstract.

I.M. Pei

There are fashions in building. Behind the fashions lie economic and technological reasons, and these fashions exclude all but a few genuinely different possibilities in city dwelling construction at any one time.

Beyond a certain speed, motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them for only a few. A new dirt road through the wilderness brings the city within view, but not within reach, of most Brazilian subsistence farmers. The new expressway expands Chicago, but it sucks those who are well-wheeled away from a downtown that decays into a ghetto.

A young, beautiful mayor’s with high-powered plans for the city of Compton must put them aside to become a sleuth to solve the assassination of her husband, the mayor.

I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity.

I.M. Pei