55 Quotes by Ada Louise Huxtable

When it is good, this is a city of fantastic strength, sophistication and beauty. It is like no other city in time or place. Visitors and even natives rarely use the words urban character or environmental style, but that is what they are reacting to with awe in the presence of massed, concentrated, steel, stone, power and life.

It is the rare architect who does not hope in his heart to design a great building and for whom the quest is not a quiet, consuming passion.

The skyscraper and the twentieth century are synonymous; the tall building is the landmark of our age. ... Shaper of cities and fortunes, it is the dream, past and present, acknowledged or unacknowledged, of almost every architect.

No matter what an architect may be at home, he becomes a monumentalist when he comes to Washington.

One of the most basic human instincts is the need to decorate. Nothing is exempt - the body, the objects one uses, from intimate to monumental, and all personal and ceremonial space. It is an instinct that responds ... to some deep inner urge that has been variously described as the horror of a vacuum and the need to put one's imprint on at least one small segment of the world.

California ... is the place that sets the trends and establishes the values for the rest of the country; like a slow ooze, California culture spreads eastward across the land.

Clutter in its highest and most organized form is called collecting.

The age of Lincoln and Jefferson memorials is over. It will be presidential libraries from now on.

Postmodernism is a freewheeling, unfettered, and unapologetic pursuit of style.