"The architect's job, in my opinion, and I must close on this, is to find those spaces, those areas of study, where the availabilities, not yet here, and those that are already here, can have better environments for their maturing into those which talk and say things to you and really make evident that the spaces that you make that are the seat of a certain offering of man to (the) next man. It is not an operational thing. You can leave that to the builders and to the operators. They already build eighty-five percent of the architecture, so give them another five percent if they're so stingy, so very selfish about it, and take only ten percent or five percent and be really an architect and not just a professional. A professional will bury you. You'll become so comfortable. You'll become so praised, equally to someone else, that you'll never recognize yourself after a while. You get yourself a good business character, you can really play golf all day and your buildings will be built anyway. But what the devil is that? What joy is there if joy is buried? I think joy is the key word in our work. It must be felt. If you don't feel joy in what you're doing, then you're not really operating. And there are miserable moments which you've got to live through. But really, joy will prevail."
Lecture at Pratt Institute (1973)
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