Help me find again a famous quote about design.

September 14, 2007 8:47 AM

I remember reading somewhere a quote, perhaps from a famous architect or designer, which described how most of the designer's work is striving to achieve a certain elusive and trascendent "quality", being a designer myself I found it very inspirational but, in zen-like fashion, I forgot about the exact wording of it, and whose it was.
posted by _dario to media & arts (8 answers total)

Christopher Alexander used the notion of the Quality Without A Name.
posted by jouke at 8:52 AM on September 14, 2007

I can't recall who it was attributed to (Herman Miller maybe? that seems wrong to me though), but I remember someone telling me about some designer who made furniture striving for "chairness," or the most refined and perfect example of a chair; possessing only its essential qualities. This is an analogue of platonic ideals I would say.
posted by zennoshinjou at 9:11 AM on September 14, 2007

I'm not sure about the quote you're looking for, but you may be interested in reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A large part of the book is devoted to the concept of "quality", it's the first thing I thought when I saw your question.
posted by knave at 9:22 AM on September 14, 2007

I agree with jouke. This sounds like something Christopher Alexander wrote in The Timeless Way of Building.
posted by AaRdVarK at 9:52 AM on September 14, 2007

The architect Yoshio Taniguchi, who redesigned the MoMA, siad something like, "If yo pay me a lot of money, I'll design a great building. Pay me even more and I'll make it disappear."
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 9:53 AM on September 14, 2007

Design in art, is a recognition of the relation between various things, various elements in the creative flux. You can't invent a design. You recognize it, in the fourth dimension. That is, with your blood and your bones, as well as with your eyes. — D.H. Lawrence

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. —Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery
posted by beagle at 10:00 AM on September 14, 2007

Smee again. Thanks everybody for the answers, it's definitely the Quality Without a Name - Christopher Alexander (a new book to read! Yay!), and it seems I'll have to pick up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance again.
posted by _dario at 11:56 AM on September 14, 2007

Alexander picks up this idea again in his most recent series, The Nature of Order, where he starts to give the quality without a name a more tangible definition. The 1st book, the Phenomenon of Life is truly inspiring to read.
posted by Jeff Howard at 12:21 PM on September 14, 2007