35 Quotes by Alvar Aalto

Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy.

We should work for simple, good, undecorated things.

The very essence of architecture consists of a variety and development reminiscent of natural organic life. This is the only true style in architecture.

Nothing old is ever reborn but neither does it totally disappear. And that which has once been born, will always reappear in a new form.

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.

God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is, at least for me, an abuse of paper.

Every one of my buildings begins with an Italian journey.

Once I tried to make a standardization of staircases. Probably that is one of the oldest of the standardizations. Of course, we design new staircase steps every day in connection with all our houses, but a standardized step depends on the height of the buildings and on all kinds of things.