61 Quotes by Le Corbusier

Education will always be torn between two fatalities: apostleship and egoism.

When I flew over the Atlas Mountains in a plane, I realized that their formation-through erosion, geological dramas, the action of winds-was completely independent of our moral anxieties; man is in a kind of cyclone; he builds solid houses to protect and shelter his heart. Outside, nature is nothing but indifference, even terror.

When the cathedrals were white, spirit was triumphant. But today the cathedrals of France are black and the spirit is bruised. The works of the new civilization are coming together in a symphonic crescendo. The guiding spirit is faltering. The young act, but they do not know. The old cling to their accumulated treasures, but are unable to accomplish anything further.

A hundred times I have thought: New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: it is a beautiful catastrophe.

…the skyscrapers of God dominated the countryside. They had made them as high as possible, extraordinarily high. It may seem a disproportion in the ensemble. Not at all, it was an act of optimism, a gesture of courage, a sign of pride, a proof of mastery! In addressing themselves to God, men did not sign their own abdication.

…the schist pyramids can leave us contrite. Greatness is in the intention; and not in dimensions.

Truth to tell, the modern man is bored to tears in his home; so he goes to his club. The modern woman is bored outside her boudoir; she goes to tea-parties. The modern man and woman are bored at home; they go to night-clubs.But lesser folk who have no clubs gather together in the evening under the chandelier and hardly dare to walk through the labyrinth of their furniture which takes up the whole room and is all their fortune and their pride.

Arhitectura are un alt sens și alte scopuri decât doar de a scoate în evidență construcția și de a răspunde unor necesități. Arhitectura este arta prin excelență, care atinge starea de măreție platoniciană, de ordine matematică, de speculație spirituală, de percepere a armoniei prin raporturi emoționale. Iată scopul arhitecturii.

A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times : It is a beautiful catastrophe.