John A. Kouwenhoven

“Our arts have not only been meshes in the web of our culture, they have been voices of our discontents.”

“The problem is to create a culture which will be just as vital and valid for us as the European cultures were for the people who created them.”

“The skyscraper is the first new structural principle in architecture since the Gothic cathedral.”

“To be an American is precisely to be a man who has to invent his own tradition.”

“The vernacular tradition, in its spontaneity and its unself-conscious freedom, is a better index to the American character than any of the records of the cultivated arts.”

“The American way of life is not a set of ideals, but a process.”

“The machine has been the great democratic force in American life.”