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" For me the meaning of my work is much more fluid. "
Thom Mayne
Much
More
Meaning
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" Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art. "
Thom Mayne
Work
World
Time
" But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour. "
Thom Mayne
Architecture
Communication
Change
" I believe that artistic activities change people. You do effect change. I see architecture as a political, social and cultural act - that is its primary role. "
Thom Mayne
Change
Political
People
" The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value. "
Thom Mayne
Aesthetic
Walking
Value
" I've learned that in order to achieve what I wanted, it made more sense to negotiate than to defend the autonomy of my work by pounding my fist on the table. "
Thom Mayne
Order
More
Work
" It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world. "
Thom Mayne
World
You
Connections
" You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us. "
Thom Mayne
Experience
Architecture
Space
" Look around at day-to-day life for ideas, and it finds its way into your work. "
Thom Mayne
Ideas
Life
Way
" I've grown up a little bit. I understand the importance of the negotiation. It is a collective act. "
Thom Mayne
Collective
Negotiation
Understand
" I'm often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That's impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more. "
Thom Mayne
World
Impossible
Architecture
" Descriptions of my work depress me. They make me feel pinned down. "
Thom Mayne
Down
Me
Make
" Large-scale public projects require the agreement of large numbers of people. "
Thom Mayne
Numbers
People
Agreement
" My buildings don't speak in words but by means of their own spaciousness. "
Thom Mayne
Means
Buildings
Own
" Architecture is the beginning of something because it's - if you're not involved in first principles, if you're not involved in the absolute, the beginning of that generative process, it's cake decoration. "
Thom Mayne
Beginning
Process
Cake
" I'm a private person by nature. I live in my brain half the time, not the world, and I'm not a natural negotiator. But I've learned to negotiate. "
Thom Mayne
Live
Nature
Brain
" Architecture is a negotiated art, and it's highly political, and if you want to make buildings, there is diplomacy required. "
Thom Mayne
Architecture
Art
Political
" We only exist in terms of how we think we exist. Meaning every cultural development is fabricated and can be fabricated. "
Thom Mayne
Think
Exist
Meaning
" Our idea of nature is increasingly being determined by scientific developments. And they have become decisive for our image of reality. "
Thom Mayne
Image
Reality
Nature
" So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I'm going counter to my own development. It's more an instinctive reaction, meant to protect the private aspect of the work, the part I am most interested in and which nowadays is at risk in our culture. "
Thom Mayne
I Am
Culture
My Own
" The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art. "
Thom Mayne
Ignorance
Ideas
Problem
" Scientific reality is the modern human condition, and you can see that in the symbolic nature of my work. "
Thom Mayne
Human
Reality
See
" So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position. "
Thom Mayne
More
Art
Attitude
" So we can't go backwards, we can only go where the evolutionary trajectory is taking us and attune our ideas about ourselves and our existence to that course. "
Thom Mayne
Us
Backwards
Our
" Architecture is a result of a process of asking questions and testing them and re-interrogating and changing in a repetitive way. "
Thom Mayne
Result
Architecture
Process