Ernest Flagg Quotes

It is clearly apparent that in building the best results should accrue in proportion as every element in the structure is fitted both to the function it has to perform and the materials of which it is made. It follows from this that disguise and complication are hindrances, both to good construction and good design, and as complication and disguise are expensive and wasteful, that the interests of good art and true economy run on parallel lines.

Why can there not be a new art founded on the only principle which can produce great art—the principle that art is the interpretation or extraction of the essence of beauty in nature, and all else is secondary?

Variety. ...Movement, contrast, and accent all contribute to variety... the spice of life... Monotony and dryness are lurking enemies which may be vanquished by variety.

For more than two thousand years architectural design by the use of a modulus, except in the case of the classic orders, had been a lost art.

The Greeks were men of sense; if they used the system they did so for a purpose, as artists rather than mathematicians and imperceptible irregularities could not affect that purpose.

Imagination... implies originality. It results in a reflection... of the working mind of the designer. ...Imagination may be called the dynamic force in art. ...It is the quality which distinguishes the artistic from the photographic representation of nature.

These houses are intended to have stone walls. ...The fact that a stone house is better in many ways than a wooden one, and also more economical in the long run has, for the most part, been overlooked... The conditions are... ripe for a change from wood to stone or other incombustible material, but it will doubtless come about slowly.

Reason...to suppose any production, worthy to be called a work of art, can be made without its use is foolish. ...By the use of reason many mistakes in design may be avoided and many counterfeits of art readily detected....Beauty alone is an excellent reason for many things, but when a design is in direct conflict with common sense it cannot be a work of art.

To the Greek harmony was of supreme importance, and if the triglyphs represented the harmonic scale... their meaning and use is abundantly explained. ...The universal admiration which Greek proportions have always excited proves that the method of obtaining them was correct.

When, in architecture, one uses a fixed unit and combinations of it, to produce harmony, the effect should be most striking and apparent... as it is in music by the measured beat and in poetry by the cadence and rhythm.

Style... the very hall-mark of great art... there is little use in trying to define style.

Instead of the dormers, skylights... are easier to make and operate, need no double sash, cost less, and some may prefer their appearance.

Economy in building consists in the aggregate of a great number of savings, which when considered separately may seem trivial, but when combined are important. The list of those here provided for... may be divided into classes as follows:

Interest. ...a design to be great must have great interest. ...the most potent of all ways to impart interest is to endow the design with beauty of form, and... the one which makes the strongest appeal to human interest and admiration is physical beauty in human shape.

Unless he is prepared to try his new theories and processes on himself, as has been done here, there is little likelihood that he will ever see them applied, for he will find that, of all people, builders are most set in their ways and hardest to move from their accustomed ruts.