In the year 2017, I read the book "Paths Uncharted" by architect Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi. It has made a lasting impression on my mind. In 2018, an article with ‘21 Inspiring Quotes by Ar BV Doshi’ was published in SURFACES REPORTER®. Put together, for the first time, from the lifelong diaries and notes maintained by him, this book is a personal recounting of his remarkable journey unfolding over more than eighty years and across all continents. In 2018, he was selected as the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, internationally known as architecture's highest honour and the first architect to receive from India. It also features several illustrations done by him.
Any page that you open has an ocean of wisdom to dive. Here are the 10 Best Quotes from the 21 Inspiring Quotes on Architecture by Ar BV Doshi, selected by yours truly.
“One cannot just be an architect. The idea is to become a sthapati.”
“House is a grain, like a small sapling in the bio-diverse wild forest.”
“There is no greater teacher than intuition.”
“They say that under the ocean there is another world which is full of silence and sounds. I believe it.”
“I hesitate calling myself an architect because the more I think I know what architecture is, the less I feel I know about its true calling.”
“Visit the site often, give a patient ear to its murmurs.”
“If you want freedom, break away from all the rules – Forget history books.”
“Our tools cannot become our masters and should not rule our lives.”
“A marriage between personal creative urge and fulfilling unspoken dreams of clients is called Architecture.”
“Limitation of resources leads us to unusual inventiveness.”
VERTICA DVIVEDI
Publisher, SURFACES REPORTER®
Director, Bigsea Marcom India Pvt Ltd