Architects may not be able to change society but we may be able to change architecture. And we may do so by learning from society.

Henrik Valeur, 2019

To be confined to a tiny box of metal; to sit there inactive and immovable, is that freedom?

Henrik Valeur, 2019

We are smart enough to understand how stupid we behave but we are not smart enough to do anything about it.

Henrik Valeur, 2015

Henrik Valeur, 2014

As we become more and more interconnected and interdependent, human development is no longer a matter of the evolution of individual groups of people but rather a matter of the co-evolution of all people.

Henrik Valeur, 2014

In India, life expectancy has increased from 32 years in 1951 to 66 years today. In China, several hundred million people have escaped extreme poverty since 1981.

What did we, who had all the scientific and technological advantages, achieve?

Faster cars and bigger television screens?

Henrik Valeur, 2013

Better do a little good than a lot of bad!

Henrik Valeur, 2013

Great cities are made of dreams rather than of bricks and mortar!

Henrik Valeur, 2013

It is a city in which we can let the children play outside without having to worry about their health and safety!

Henrik Valeur, 2010

The problem is that the good is slow and small whereas the bad is fast and big!

Henrik Valeur, 2012

For architects in the rich countries almost everything is possible but hardly anything is needed. For architects in the poor countries hardly anything is possible but almost everything is needed.

Henrik Valeur, 2012

Sustainable cities integrate and adapt to nature, just as they integrate and adapt to people!

Henrik Valeur, 2012.

If we want to live in harmony with nature we have to think and act more like nature. And in nature nothing is decided in advance!

Henrik Valeur, 2012.

My grandfather was the first chief engineer of Glostrup – a suburb of Copenhagen. He was appointed in the 1920’s, when the municipality consisted of three villages with a total population of less than five thousand. For many years he was only chief of himself as he was the only one employed in the technical administration. Nevertheless, when he retired in the 1960’s Glostrup was a modern and fully integrated part of the metropolitan area of Copenhagen, accommodating a population of more than twenty five thousand.

Nothing much has happened since. Today the roads are still the same and so are most of the buildings. The population has even dropped slightly, yet the technical administration now employs perhaps a hundred people.

Henrik Valeur, 2012.

All my heroes are dead.

Gilles Deleuze gave life to philosophy and then he took his own life.

Rem Koolhass gave life to architecture and then he took life out of it again.

Henrik Valeur, 2012.