Thom Mayne quotes

We only exist in terms of how we think we exist. Meaning every cultural development is fabricated and can be fabricated. (Thom Mayne)
The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art.
Thom Mayne
I've learned that in order to achieve what I wanted, it made more sense to negotiate than to defend the autonomy of my work by pounding my fist on the table.
Thom Mayne
Our idea of nature is increasingly being determined by scientific developments. And they have become decisive for our image of reality.
Thom Mayne
So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.
Thom Mayne
Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art.
Thom Mayne
Large-scale public projects require the agreement of large numbers of people.
Thom Mayne
The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value.
Thom Mayne
My buildings don't speak in words but by means of their own spaciousness.
Thom Mayne
I've been such an outsider my whole life.
Thom Mayne
For me the meaning of my work is much more fluid. (Thom Mayne)
It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world.
Thom Mayne
Scientific reality is the modern human condition, and you can see that in the symbolic nature of my work.
Thom Mayne
The multiplicity of ideas is what Im interested in.
Thom Mayne
I'm often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That's impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more.
Thom Mayne
So we can't go backwards, we can only go where the evolutionary trajectory is taking us and attune our ideas about ourselves and our existence to that course.
Thom Mayne
But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.
Thom Mayne
I've grown up a little bit. I understand the importance of the negotiation. It is a collective act.
Thom Mayne
I think all good architecture should challenge you, make you start asking questions. You don't have to understand it. You may not like it. That's OK.
Thom Mayne
Look around at day-to-day life for ideas, and it finds its way into your work.
Thom Mayne
Architecture is the beginning of something because it's - if you're not involved in first principles, if you're not involved in the absolute, the beginning of that generative process, it's cake decoration. (Thom Mayne)
You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.
Thom Mayne
Descriptions of my work depress me. They make me feel pinned down.
Thom Mayne
I'm interested in conflict and confrontation.
Thom Mayne
Architecture is a discipline that takes time and patience. If one spends enough years writing complex novels one might be able, someday, to construct a respectable haiku.
Thom Mayne