Ada Louise Huxtable Quotes, born March 14, 1921, in New York City, was an American architecture critic and writer, celebrated as the first full-time architecture critic at The New York Times and the first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1970. Her incisive prose and advocacy for preservation, notably against the demolition of Penn Station, made architecture a public dialogue, shaping how we view cities and their buildings. These 15 quotes—sourced from her books, articles, and posts on X—capture her insights on architecture, urban life, and the human experience, reflecting her wit and unwavering commitment to quality.
15 Ada Louise Huxtable Quotes
- “Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “Until the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age of Roman elegance.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “Nothing was more up-to-date when it was built, or is more obsolete today, than the railroad station.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “A disaster where marble has been substituted for imagination.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “The trade center towers could be the start of a new skyscraper age or the biggest tombstones in the world.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “Every age cuts and pastes history to suit its own purposes; art always has an ax to grind.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “Waiting is a large part of living. Great, passive, negative chunks of our time are consumed by waiting, from birth to death.” (Kicked a Building Lately?, 1976)
- “The New York Hilton is laid out with a competence that would make a computer blush.” (The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered, 1986)
- “Only a Californian would have observed that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the real fake from the fake fake.” (The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered, 1986)
- “Clutter in its highest and most organized form is called collecting.” (The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered, 1986)
- “Postmodernism is a freewheeling, unfettered, and unapologetic pursuit of style.” (The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered, 1986)
- “Beauty or beast, the modern skyscraper is a major force with a strong magnetic field. It draws into its physical being all of the factors that propel and characterize modern civilization.” (On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, 2010)
- “Real estate is the closest thing to the proverbial pot of gold.” (Post on X, @oftucom, 2025-05-26)
Ada Louise Huxtable’s quotes are a clarion call for better cities, sharper design, and a deeper appreciation of the spaces we inhabit, blending wit with a fierce defense of architectural integrity. Which quote inspires you to rethink your surroundings? Share it below and keep Huxtable’s visionary legacy alive!
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