“[…]that he might really and would surely develop his own characteristic individuality, and that the architectural art with him would certainly become a living form of speech, a natural form of utterance, giving surcease to him and adding treasures great and small to the growing art of the land; […]” -Louis H. Sullivan, 1896.
I have collected quotes on architecture as a language since day one, not sure why or how it all started, exactly. Some strange, some straight forward. I am also interested in language as architecture, so keep that in mind. I finally realized there was more to this notion than Victor Hugo’s or Nikolai Gogol’s puzzling statements, the Sullivan epigraph above, brings it all together. Not only is it a beautiful line by Sullivan, it is intrinsic to the essay that brought us his “form ever follows function” mantra. You may, or may not, get the connection between architecture and language, but I hope it makes some sense to you before this post and my next post. We know architecture, we know language, but soon it will be time to know a compounded notion of the two: ARCHITECTURE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sullivan, Louis H. “The Tall Office Building, Artistically Considered”. The Inland Architect and News Record. May, 1896. Pp.32-34.
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