A biography for Arthur Ericksonhasn’t been written yet.
“Compared to industry in Europe or Japan, where industry was based on a craft tradition, we are sadly behind.”
“Nearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad.”
“The great dream merchant Disney was a success because make-believe was what everyone seemed to need in a spiritually empty land.”
“Our engineering departments build freeways which destroy a city or a landscape, in the process.”
“Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.”
“The heart, not the head, must be the guide.”
“The innovative spirit was America's strongest attribute, transforming everything into a brave new world, but there lingered an insecurity about the arts.”
“The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe.”
“Materialism has never been so ominous as now in North America, as management takes over.”
“We are guilty for sending teams into foreign countries to advise them how to be like us.”
“No amount of thought can ever reveal what comes unexpectedly.”
“The Achilles Heel of the Americas was the lack of cultural confidence typical of new settlers.”
“The essentially unchangeable established order of things slowly disappeared and was forgotten for a while completely.”
“Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.”
“God's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the self-made men, who take the credit.”
“We find Japan a little more difficult to understand because it has proven its 20th century prowess though the ancient traditions still persist.”
“The obsession with performance left no room for the development of the intuitive or spiritual impact of space and form other than the aesthetic of the machine itself.”
“You have to see a building to comprehend it. Photographs cannot convey the experience, nor film.”
“Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it.”
“There is a single thread of attitude, a single direction of flow, that joins our present time to its early burgeoning in Mediterranean civilization.”