“Solving problems is the lowest form of design. Because design wants more from us. It wants our humanity. It wants our optimism. It wants our honesty. It wants our ideas for what a better world looks like. Some days, those are small ideas. Some days, those are big ideas.”
“You cannot be a cynic or a skeptic when you build a building. You cannot be a pessimist, which you could be in almost any other endeavor. You could compose in a minor key or you can write a poem that has a darkness to it. But because architecture require foundations, because it requires construction and it is a communal activity, it always is an assertion of a future that is true, that is good.”
Nico Muhley with an approach to reading:
[I] came across somebody’s blog, the first line of which was, “I decided not to read this when it came out.” What. Why would you take the time to write that you, on purpose, didn’t read something? What a strange impulse, and a strange thing to admit to; maybe it’s something in my makeup but it seems only polite to listen to every goddamn thing and read everything and don’t stop listening and reading and looking until you keel over in a pile of Belgian schmattas and headphones, and until that time, feel terribly guilty about not having read, listened, seen. I have a page on my phone that is devoted to things I need to read, things people have recommended to me. The principle is to go into everything wanting to like it. I read those Dan Brown books! The only reason I could see not to would be to make a terrible autobiographical point, and reading things with hatred in the heart is the opposite of fun, so I found a way in that felt like making the best of an airport bistro.If we go into everything seeing good, seeing possibility in those airport bistros, boingo wifi, saying ‘yes and,’ what might be possible? It’s the ‘wanting to like it principle.’
“[E]verything we do, everything we make, is not about the beginning or the end of things. We may draw a line, but we are in the thick of life. We make for these middle parts. Every time we sit down to write, draw, design, paint, dance, we do so because we believe there will be a tomorrow. Every movement and each creation says, “The world is not done yet.” To make is to be optimistic. We get to make tomorrow for ourselves and one another, and we are lucky, because we are allowed to be engaged with the world and one another in this way.”
From Frank Chimero’s inspiring piece The Storm and The Line
We get to create tomorrow. Together, we can build a new world, a world that’s better than this one. That’s what great art does—it momentarily takes you out of this world and lets you see a glimpse of another world, a better world. A world we too can create.
This is one of those things you always know to be true deep down but sometimes it feels good to let someone else say it. This is one of the many reasons I can’t wait for Frank’s book.
