Embellishment is an irresistible and consuming impulse, going back to the beginnings of human history. ... Probably the strongest motivating force is the simplest: the inability of almost everyone to ever leave well enough alone. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
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. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
No matter what an architect may be at home, he becomes a monumentalist when he comes to Washington. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
There are two kinds of people in the world - those who have a horror of a vacuum and those with a horror of… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
One of the most basic human instincts is the need to decorate. Nothing is exempt - the body, the objects one uses, from intimate… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
The age of Lincoln and Jefferson memorials is over. It will be presidential libraries from now on. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
the search for the ultimate skyscraper goes on. ... At worst, overbuilding will make urban life unbearable. At best, we will go out in… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
Beauty or beast, the modern skyscraper is a major force with a strong magnetic field. It draws into its physical being all of the… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
Who’s afraid of the big, bad buildings? Everyone, because there are so many things about gigantism that we just don’t know. The gamble of… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
Symbol and metaphor are as much a part of the architectural vocabulary as stone and steel. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
The New York Hilton is laid out with a competence that would make a computer blush. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
Every age cuts and pastes history to suit its own purposes; art always has an ax to grind. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
Good architecture is still the difficult, conscientious, creative, expressive planning for that elusive synthesis that is a near-contradiction in terms: efficiency and beauty. — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
The perennial architectural debate has always been, and will continue to be, about art versus use, visions versus pragmatism, aesthetics versus social responsibility. In… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
Today, when so much seems to conspire to reduce life and feeling to the most deprived and demeaning bottom line, it is more important… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
Surrogate experience and surrogate environments have become the American way of life. Distinctions are no longer made, or deemed necessary, between the real and… — Ada Louise Huxtable Copy Share Image
