After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared.
Arthur Erickson

Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.
Arthur Erickson

Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.
Arthur Erickson

Bankers cannot afford to be concerned with only the economic aspects of projects. There may be serious implications on the natural environment, the urban environment, on human culture.
Arthur Erickson

Builders eventually took advantage of the look of modernism to build cheaply and carelessly.
Arthur Erickson

Compared to industry in Europe or Japan, where industry was based on a craft tradition, we are sadly behind.
Arthur Erickson

Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place?
Arthur Erickson

God's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the self-made men, who take the credit.
Arthur Erickson

Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart.
Arthur Erickson

I plead for conservation of human culture, which is much more fragile than nature herself. We needn't destroy other cultures with the force of our own.
Arthur Erickson


Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.
Arthur Erickson

In those countries with centuries of a craft tradition behind their building methods, techniques are tightly coordinated under the direction of the architect.
Arthur Erickson

Inspiration in Science may have to do with ideas, but not in Art. In art it is in the senses that are instinctively responsive to the medium of expression.
Arthur Erickson

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.
Arthur Erickson

Materialism has never been so ominous as now in North America, as management takes over.
Arthur Erickson

Modernism released us from the constraints of everything that had gone before with a euphoric sense of freedom.
Arthur Erickson

Nearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad.
Arthur Erickson

No amount of thought can ever reveal what comes unexpectedly.
Arthur Erickson

No phenomenon can be isolated, but has repercussions through every aspect of our lives. We are learning that we are a fundamental part of nature's ecosystems.
Arthur Erickson

No wonder the film industry started in the desert in California where, like all desert dwellers, they dream their buildings, rather than design them.
Arthur Erickson