“Architecture is a set of endlessly absorbing questions for our society rather than a set of clearly defined objects with particular effects. Architects are public intellectuals, crafting forms that allow others to see the world differently and perhaps to live differently. The real gift of the best architects is to produce a kind of hesitation in the routines of contemporary life, an opening in which new potentials are offered, new patterns, rhythms, moods, sensations, pleasures, connections, and perceptions. The architect’s buildings are placed in the city like the books of a thoughtful novelist might be placed in a newsstand in a railway station, embedding the possibility of a rewarding detour amongst all the routines, a seemingly minor detour that might ultimately change the meaning of everything else. The architect crafts an invitation to think and act differently”
Mark Wigley, GSAPP Columbia.
