Imagination vs. Reality

I did a project and all that remains of it is a beautiful image.

No thanks.

What interest me in this business is building, making dreams pass into reality...

It’s only interesting when you get the impression you’re actually making contribution.

Taking part in a certain idea of the evolution of cities and—philosophically—in creating a certain future.

What it boils down to is that I could never have been an architectural artist.

I mean someone who sees architecture as an artwork activity, like Piranesi.

The thing that interests me is seeing the images that i design pass into reality.

by Jean Nouvel

Cinema and Architecture: The Invention of Small Worlds

There are a lot of crossover between the two discipline: for me, the connection between imagery and time came about largely thanks to cinema. Both the architect and the moviemaker create or invent things that interrelate imagery and time. For one, it’s a product that plays on total illusion, because there is no physical reality other than the set of pictures; for the other, the product is experienced as a piece of space that works to a sort of scenario, a bit like a small invented world. Both of us—film director and architect—invent small worlds.

by Jean Nouvel