Comments on: Help me find again a famous quote about design.

Question: Help me find again a famous quote about design.

_dario — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:47:11 -0800

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.

By: jouke

jouke — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:52:33 -0800

Christopher Alexander used the notion of the Quality Without A Name.

By: zennoshinjou

zennoshinjou — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:11:18 -0800

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.

By: knave

knave — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:22:39 -0800

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.

By: AaRdVarK

AaRdVarK — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:52:22 -0800

I agree with jouke. This sounds like something Christopher Alexander wrote in The Timeless Way of Building.

By: strangeleftydoublethink

strangeleftydoublethink — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:53:07 -0800

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."

By: beagle

beagle — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:00:56 -0800

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

By: _dario

_dario — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 11:56:51 -0800

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.

By: Jeff Howard

Jeff Howard — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:21:55 -0800

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.