Arthur Erickson

“Architecture is a political act, by nature. It has to do with the relationships between people and how they decide to change their popular life.”

“Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us.”

“If you are going to be a true nationalist, you have to be a true internationalist.”

“Play is the principal business of childhood, and the primary mode of learning.”

“Modern architects are so pre-occupied with the task of inventing new forms that they have forgotten that the deepest source of architectural form is the landscape.”

“The building becomes part of the landscape, and the landscape becomes part of the building.”

“Gardens are a form of autobiography.”

“Cities must be places where human beings can be human, places where they can live, and work, and play, and learn, and grow.”

“I prefer to have a theme of a certain mystery.”

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”

“For me, the most important thing is the sense of the holy, the search for the holy. It's the search for that inward echo that has been lost.”

“What is important is the relationship of man to the universe.”