35 Quotes by Alvar Aalto

It is the task of the architect to give life a gentler structure.

Architecture is not merely national but clearly has local ties in that it is rooted in the earth.

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.

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.

True architecture exists only where man stands in the center.

I tell you, it is easier to build a grand opera or a city center than to build a personal house.

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.

I do not write, I build.

Architecture belongs to culture, not to civilization.