Literary Dose #8

"Many people think that in order to be a good architect it's also necessary to have a philosophy of one's own. I don't think it's necessary, but I know the ease with which a journalist 'helps' an architect by pushing him to take a philosphical position. I've been able to observe this time and again and if you ask me today I'd surely reply that I don't have a complete philosophical vision. I think it's something dangerous, an obstacle to natural and architectural understanding, a distancing from reality, an intellectual edifice that ages all too quickly and might make us lose contact with the world we live in right now. Architectural philosophy can all too easily turn into something one becomes attached to in order to safeguard one's own vision, a pillow on which one can sleep soundly."

- Arne Jacobson, in a lecture on the occasion of the awarding of the 1963 Fritz Schumacher Prize, quoted in Synchronizing Geometry (2006), by Borja Ferrater & Carlos Ferrater.