42 Quotes by Bjarke Ingels

One of the dilemmas of architecture in general is that there is a Catch-22 - you can't actually get to be commissioned to do certain types of building until you've already built that type of building. So it seems to be incredibly hard to get going.

I wanted to be a cartoonist, but there was no cartoon academy. So I enrolled in the Royal Danish Art Academy School of Architecture. But then I really got smitten by architecture.

A kid in Minecraft can build a world and inhabit it through play. We have the possibility to build the world that we want to inhabit.

The fact that something is actually understandable and relatable doesn't mean that it's unsophisticated or banal. It just means that it's crystal-clear. And if you can't explain it, that doesn't necessarily mean it's so brilliant that ordinary mortals can't fathom it. It might just mean that it makes no sense.

The 'International Style of Modernism' came with the advent of building services. In the end, the architecture became like a container space, essentially like a boring box with a basement full of machinery to make it inhabitable. As a result, buildings literally started to look identical all over the planet.

Design our world so that we have positive social and environmental side effects.

I think the biggest backhanded criticism-compliment I get is that I'm 'good at communicating.' Which implies that you're bad at doing.

Our cities are not polluted or congested because they have to be. They are what they are because that's how we made them.

When I started studying architecture, people would say, you know, 'Can you tell me why are all modern buildings so boring?' Because, like, people had this idea that in the good old days, architecture had, like, ornament and little towers and spires and gargoyles, and today, it just becomes very practical.