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Ada Louise Huxtable

Ada Louise Huxtable Biography

Architectural Critic

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“The perennial architectural debate has always been, and will continue to be, about art versus use, visions versus pragmatism, aesthetics versus social responsibility. In the end, these unavoidable conflicts provide architecture's essential and productive tensions; the tragedy is that so little of it rises above the level imposed by compromise, and that this is the only work most of us see and know.”

KnowsLittlesArtEndsUseSocialLevelsResponsibilityVisionConflictEssentialsTragedyArchitectureDebateCompromiseTensionProductiveSocial ResponsibilityVersusRise AboveAestheticsPragmatism
Book:On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change
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“In New York, the impact of these concentrated superskyscrapers on street scale and sunlight, on the city's aniquated support systems, circulation, and infrastructure, on its already tenuous livability, overrides any aesthetic. ... Art becomes worthless in a city brutalized by overdevelopment.”

ArtCitiesSupportStreetsNew YorkArt IsImpactArchitectureScalesAestheticSunlightWorthlessInfrastructureCirculationSupport Systems
Book:The tall building artistically reconsidered: the search for a skyscraper style
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“The skyscraper and the twentieth century are synonymous; the tall building is the landmark of our age. ... Shaper of cities and fortunes, it is the dream, past and present, acknowledged or unacknowledged, of almost every architect.”

DreamAgePastCitiesCenturyBuildingFortuneArchitectureTallArchitectTwentieth CenturyPast And PresentLandmarksSkyscraperTall Buildings
Book:On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change
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“Beauty or beast, the modern skyscraper is a major force with a strong magnetic field. It draws into its physical being all of the factors that propel and characterize modern civilization. The skyscraper is the point where art and the city meet.”

ArtStrongForceCitiesModernFieldsCivilizationMajorsDrawsArchitectureFactorsBeastMagneticSkyscraperModern CivilizationMagnetic Fields
Book:The tall building artistically reconsidered: the search for a skyscraper style
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“Because it is a national landmark, there is only one way to judge the Kennedy Center - against the established standard of progressive and innovative excellence in architectural design that this country is known and admired for internationally. Unfortunately, the Kennedy Center not only does not achieve this standard of innovative excellence; it also did not seek it. The architect opted for something ambiguously called 'timelessness' and produced meaninglessness. It is to the Washington manner born. Too bad, since there is so much of it.”

WayDoeCountryBornKnownAchieveDesignJudgingStandardsExcellenceArchitectureOne WayProgressiveArchitectInnovativeMeaninglessnessLandmarksTimelessnessArchitectural Design
Book:On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change
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“One of the most basic human instincts is the need to decorate. Nothing is exempt - the body, the objects one uses, from intimate to monumental, and all personal and ceremonial space. It is an instinct that responds ... to some deep inner urge that has been variously described as the horror of a vacuum and the need to put one's imprint on at least one small segment of the world.”

WorldNeedsHumansHas BeensUseBodySpaceObjectsHorrorClothesInstinctIntimateUrgesVacuums
Book:ARCHITECTURE, ANYONE?
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“Really living without clutter takes an iron will ... This involves eternal watchfulness and that oldest and most relentless of the housewife's occupations, picking up. I have a feeling that picking up will go on long after ways have been found to circumvent death and taxes.”

WayLongHas BeensFeelingsFoundGoes OnTaxesEternalIronOccupationRelentlessHousewifeClutterHouseworkWatchfulnessReally LivingIron Will
Book:On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change
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“The art of decoration requires the most sophisticated and self-indulgent skills. Its aim has always been to sate the senses as gloriously as possible. ... ornament is not only a source of sensuous pleasure; it supplies a necessary kind of magic to people and places that lack it. More than just a dread of empty spaces has led to the urge to decorate; it is the fear of empty selves.”

PeopleKindArtSelfSpacePleasureMagicSourceSkillsEmptyAimSensesUrgesDreadSophisticatedSuppliesOrnamentsDecorationEmpty SpaceSensuousSelf Indulgent
Book:ARCHITECTURE, ANYONE?
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“In Paris style is everything. That is traditionally understood. Every street, every structure, every shopgirl has style. The style of Parisian architecture has been proved and refined by at least three centuries of academic dictates and highly developed taste. There are few violations of this taste, and there is exemplary architectural consistency. Paris has defined the aesthetics of a sophisticated urban culture.”

Has BeensCultureThreeStreetsCenturyStyleTasteUnderstoodStructureArchitectureDefinedParisAcademicSophisticatedUrbanConsistencyAestheticsViolationRefinedExemplary
Book:ARCHITECTURE, ANYONE?
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“Waiting is a large part of living. Great, passive, negative chunks of our time are consumed by waiting, from birth to death. Waiting is a special kind of activity - if activity is the right word for it - because we are held in enforced suspension between people and places, removed from the normal rhythms of our days and lives.”

PeopleIfsKindWaitingSpecialBirthActivityNormalNegativeRhythmOur TimePassiveConsumedChunksRight WordsSuspension
Book:ARCHITECTURE, ANYONE?
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“Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.”

WorldLoveKindSpiritBeliefSummerClothesDrunkTensionShedSummertimeBatteredSummer DaysSummer SunSummer GardenSummer Is ComingSummer InspirationalCute SummerGreat SummerSummer Time
Book:On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change
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“Who’s afraid of the big, bad buildings? Everyone, because there are so many things about gigantism that we just don’t know. The gamble of triumph or tragedy at this scale — and ultimately it is a gamble — demands an extraordinary payoff. The trade center towers could be the start of a new skyscraper age or the biggest tombstones in the world.”

KnowsWorldBigsAgeBuildingDemandTragedyTradeExtraordinaryScalesTriumphTowersGambleTombstoneSkyscraperPayoff
Author:Ada Louise Huxtable
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“Today, when so much seems to conspire to reduce life and feeling to the most deprived and demeaning bottom line, it is more important than ever that we receive that extra dimension of dignity or delight and the elevated sense of self that the art of building can provide through the nature of the places where we live and work. What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.”

WorldWayArtImportantSelfFeelingsSeemsTodayLinesWonderStyleBuildingBuiltDignityBottomDelightArchitectureExtrasDimensionsDeprivedBottom LineSense Of SelfDemeaning
Author:Ada Louise Huxtable
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“Until the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance. Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed”

WantFirstsWould BeAgeCulturePayCitiesNew YorkDeserveCleanBlowConvincedArchitectureAdmireDestroyedStationsPermitJudgedFinestEleganceMonumentTinLandmarksVandalismTin Cans
Author:Ada Louise Huxtable
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