Dezeen's top 10 quotes of 2023
From the incisive to the intemperate, here are Dezeen's top 10 quotes of 2023, taken from the interviews and opinion pieces we have published this year.
Dezeen has published more than 100 interviews and over 50 opinion pieces this year, featuring some of the best-known voices in architecture and design.
Our interviewees and writers have come out with an extensive catalogue of memorable lines, including candid admissions, eloquent attacks on architecture and eyebrow-raising proclamations.
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Read on for Dezeen's top 10 quotes of 2023:
"I have a confession to make: I have no idea what placemaking is" – Reinier de Graaf
OMA partner and frequent Dezeen contributor Reinier de Graaf took aim at the concept of placemaking in a memorable opinion piece in September.
"The more I hear the word, the less I understand it," he wrote, in a continuation of his ongoing attempt to deconstruct architectural jargon.
Dezeen interviewed emergency planner Lucy Easthope as part of our Designing for Disasters series.
"Almost all of the deaths that I see are a failure of design," she told us.
"All content is fed through the same sausage machine" – Neville Brody
British designer Neville Brody has been a leading light in the world of graphic design and typography for decades.
In this interview with Dezeen, he discussed the profound ways in which the shift from print media to digital has affected the discipline.
"The Vessel symbolizes everything wrong with America's wealth gap" – Matt Shaw
Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel in New York City has been one of the biggest and most controversial architecture stories of the past few years.
As two years passed since the structure was closed following a spate of suicides, author Matt Shaw wrote about what can be learned from the ill-fated project.
"We cannot design just to please our clients anymore" – Yasmeen Lari
Dezeen sat down with Yasmeen Lari for an exclusive interview in April as she accepted the prestigious RIBA Royal Gold Medal award.
Famous for her humanitarian, climate-conscious design, she took the opportunity to issue provocative call-to-action for the architecture profession.
Architect and writer Eleanor Jollifee sparked a lively discussion in the comments section underneath this opinion piece reflecting on the current nature of the architecture profession.
She argued that architects have become divorced from the construction and engineering knowledge that was once central to their work.
"Deconstructivism: bullshit. Postmodernism: bullshit" – Michael Green
Canadian architect Michael Green, known for his work with mass timber, did not hold back when speaking with Dezeen as part of our Timber Revolution series.
He robustly challenged the prevailing perceptions of construction materials, memorably taking aim at major architecture movements of the 20th-century that championed concrete, steel and glass.
"Chipperfield's work on the whole is bland, unimaginative and overly grandiose" – Aaron Betsky
British architect David Chipperfield was named the winner of this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most coveted accolade in the profession.
But academic and Dezeen columnist Aaron Betsky – a man who rarely pulls punches – was not happy with the decision, as he explained in this cutting piece.
"I have fought all my life against macho products" – Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck is one of the world's most famous designers with a string of iconic furniture and homeware pieces to his name.
In this interview with Dezeen, conducted at the launch of his collection for Spanish brand Andreu World, he had plenty to say about gender and sexuality, claiming that "asexuality will be the biggest revolution".
"It's like we're all stuck in our granddads' idea of the future" – Freyja Sewell
With artificial intelligence dominating the news this summer, Dezeen ran an extensive editorial series exploring the impact of the technology on design, architecture and humanity.
As part of the series, named AItopia, designer Freyja Sewell wrote about the need to challenge the dystopian, cyberpunk-style visions of the future that dominate science fiction as we shape our changing world.
This article is part of Dezeen's roundup of the biggest and best news and projects in architecture, design, interior design and technology from 2023.