Jean Nouvel Quotations

Art should be created for life, not for the museum

Each new situation requires a new architecture.

Space, space: architects always talk about space! But creating a space is not automatically doing architecture. With the same space, you can make a masterpiece or cause a disaster.

It is not possible to design always the same. How to be different in each different place - that is the most important work and duty of the architect to find out.

Architecture exists, like cinema, in the dimension of time and movement

The best engineer a few decades ago was someone who could create the most beautiful beam or structure; today it's to do a structure you cannot see or understand how it's done. It disappears and you can talk only about color, symbols, and light. It's an aesthetic of miracle.

I like to play with architecture! It's my favorite game.

My interest has always been in an architecture which reflects the modernity of our epoch as opposed to the rethinking of historical references. My work deals with what is happening now—our techniques and materials, what we are capable of doing today.

The task of the architect is to encompass everything about the site, starting from the concrete conditions and the sensory impressions created by those, to memories of the place, through empathy to vision.

I think architecture has to be a gift.

I don't like the idea that one hotel could be better than another. In any city, I try to find a hotel that has the identity of that place - Claridge's in London, the Danieli or Cipriani in Venice. In New York, I stay at the Mercer Hotel; it is so much in the character of SoHo.

If there was a fire at my house I would throw more things on it. The only thing I would take out? Myself!

I generally hate the luxury modern apartment with too many things out of sight and so clean you cannot touch.

I like English parks.

My buildings are more famous than me.