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Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place in all this? Unfortunately we are no longer the interpreters of our culture's myths but the followers of that dubious client, the developer, who has little patience with the art of architecture, the fine detail and obscure promise, which can upset his financial activity.

Arthur Erickson

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Arthur Erickson
Age: 84 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 14
Died: 2009
Died: May 20
Architect
University Teacher
Vancouver
British Columbia
Arthur Charles Erickson
Arthur C. Erickson
Culture
Upset
Interpreters
Spirit
Patience
Dubious
Place
Architecture
Client
Doe
Financial
Myths
Little
Promise
Detail
Activity
Obscure
Longer
Followers
Assuage
Fine
Unfortunately
Developer

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With production alone as the goal, industry in North America was dominated by the assembly line, standardization for mass consumption.
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There is a single thread of attitude, a single direction of flow, that joins our present time to it's early burgeoning in Mediterranean civilization...
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You have to see a building to comprehend it. Photographs cannot convey the experience, nor film.
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Western history has been a history of deed done, actions performed and results achieved.
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Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us.
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Nearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad.
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We find Japan a little more difficult to understand because it has proven its 20th century prowess though the ancient traditions still persist.
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We are guilty for sending teams into foreign countries to advise them how to be like us.
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Profit and bottom line, the contemporary mantra, eliminates the very source of architectural expression.
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Our settlement of land is without regard to the best use of land.
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We are stymied by regulations, limited choice and the threat of litigation. Neither consultants nor industry itself provide research which takes architecture forward.
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Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.
Arthur Erickson
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The way of architecture is the quiet voice that underlies it and has guided it from the beginning.
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God's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the self-made men, who take the credit.
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I plead for conservation of human culture, which is much more fragile than nature herself. We needn't destroy other cultures with the force of our own.
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We are yet to have a conscience at all about the exploitation of human cultures.
Arthur Erickson
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We are not peddlers of the fashionable. We believe that good design defies fashion, is truly innovative, eminently sensible, yet a source of inspiration to those who have the pleasure of living with it.
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The innovative spirit was America's strongest attribute, transforming everything into a brave new world, but there lingered an insecurity about the arts.
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No phenomenon can be isolated, but has repercussions through every aspect of our lives. We are learning that we are a fundamental part of nature's ecosystems.
Arthur Erickson
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Life is rich, always changing, always challenging, and we architects have the task of transmitting into wood, concrete, glass and steel, of transforming human aspirations into habitable and meaningful space.
Arthur Erickson