Antoine De Saint-Exupéry Once Said………

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said………
  Published to Architecture on Dec 30, 2024

​Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said………

“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away”.

When we look at beauty, what is it that we actually see? which aspect of beauty makes what we are looking at become perfection in our mind’s eye?

Is it the curves, the natural shapes, the landscape, that rise and fall for no apparent or distinct reason, other than to form the shadows and silhouettes, that in themselves form varying depths of colour and sophistication? 

What about those dark shadows, do we desire the unknown that sits behind and beyond that which is hidden from the viewer, but which is perhaps the very essence of perfection itself?

Shapes that are cast from the elegant and the prominent, the eye-catching and the often dramatic, can only serve to enhance the thinking that something remarkable or incredible has been achieved.

The extraordinary is an obsession.

Beauty pre-occupies our minds, and therefore we should strive for perfection, not until there is no longer anything to add, but until there is no longer anything to take away.

Architecture is an obsession. Nobody knows how great the achievement is until it is realised, and the work that goes into the design process comes to fruition.

Building design on whatever scale, encompasses not just a few sketches and diagrams, models, or a mass in concept, but also questions, and thoughts that perhaps all this work and thought will certainly produce the best solution possible. At the end of the Architectural process, it has to be obvious that you have arrived at the best outcome and elucidation. Otherwise, have you failed yourself as a designer, or is it that further modifications will enhance the result. That`s the challenge.

An idea gets realised because a process involving the pursuit of perfection has been gone through, yielding success.

In the same way that we encountered the most beautiful, in which in our imagination was beyond our initial comprehension, we will have positively achieved the extraordinary.