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Beauty is the harmony of purpose and form.

Alvar Aalto

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Alvar Aalto
Age: 78 †
Born: 1898
Born: February 3
Died: 1976
Died: May 11
Architect
Designer
Urban Planner
Aalto
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto
Purpose
Form
Harmony
Beauty

More quotes by Alvar Aalto

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Our time is so specialised that we have people who know more and more or less and less.
Alvar Aalto
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Architecture is not merely national but clearly has local ties in that it is rooted in the earth.
Alvar Aalto
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It is the task of the architect to give life a gentler structure.
Alvar Aalto
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Building art is a synthesis of life in materialised form. We should try to bring in under the same hat not a splintered way of thinking, but all in harmony together.
Alvar Aalto
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The very essence of architecture consists of a variety and development reminiscent of natural organic life. This is the only true style in architecture
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Just as it takes time for a speck of fish spawn to develop into a fully grown fish, so, too, we need time for everything that develops and crystallizes in the world of ideas. Architecture demands more of this time than other creative work.
Alvar Aalto
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Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction.
Alvar Aalto
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The tubular steel chair is surely rational from technical and constructive points of view. It is light, suitable for mass production, and so on. But steel and chromium surfaces are not satisfactory from the human point of view.
Alvar Aalto
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The best standardisation committee in the world is nature herself, but in nature standardisation occurs mainly in connection with the smallest possible units: cells. The result is millions of flexible combinations in which one never encounters the stereotyped.
Alvar Aalto
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The ultimate goal of the architect...is to create a paradise. Every house, every product of architecture... should be a fruit of our endeavour to build an earthly paradise for people.
Alvar Aalto
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I do not write, I build.
Alvar Aalto
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I tell you, it is easier to build a grand opera or a city center than to build a personal house.
Alvar Aalto
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True architecture exists only where man stands in the center.
Alvar Aalto
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We should work for simple, good, undecorated things
Alvar Aalto
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We should concentrate our work not only to a separated housing problem but housing involved in our daily work and all the other functions of the city.
Alvar Aalto
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Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy.
Alvar Aalto
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God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is at least for me an abuse of paper.
Alvar Aalto
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Nothing old is ever reborn, but neither does it totally disappear. And that which has once been [born], will always reappear in a new form.
Alvar Aalto
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The most difficult problems are naturally not involved in the search for forms for contemporary life. It is a question of working our way to forms behind which real human values lie.
Alvar Aalto
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In almost every task involving form, there are dozens, often hundreds of contradictory elements, which need to be forced to work in harmony by man's will. This harmony can be acheived only through art.
Alvar Aalto