On difficulty of designing a problem-free building: quote is by Frank O. Gehry.

"These things are complicated and they involved a lot of people, and you never quite know where they went wrong. A building goes together with seven billion pieces of connective tissue. The chances of it getting done ever without something colliding or some misstep are small."
Referring to suit brought by M.I.T. over leaks, cracks and drainage problems at the Stata Center, reported in the New York Times, November 7, 2007

On responsibility of architect to understand building construction: quotes are by Peter Eisenman.

"There's not an architect I know that doesn't have problems with important buildings," Mr. Eisenman said in a recent interview in his New York office. He cited a comment that Frank Lloyd Wright is said to have made when a client called to complain that a house was leaking: You mean you left my building out in the rain? "Do you know any architect that's been free of that? I don't know any," Mr. Eisenman said. "Frank, Rem—they all do," he said, referring to Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas. "Wright, Corbu, Mies. Look at Mies and the Farnsworth House—enormous problems."
New York Times, Sept. 18, 2005

On particular qualities of materials: quotes are by Michael Graves.

"I don't know whether lay people know it's gypboard. For many modern architects, on the other hand, it's a moral question: If it's gypboard, they feel it should be read as gypboard. That doesn't interest me. It's a surface that gains some identification beyond the junk it's made of, by virtue of its color, its texture, its placement."
Progressive Architecture, March 1983

Question: "So you prefer the sculptural quality of stone?"

Answer (Graves): "Don't you? I mean why do you ask me questions like that? What is stone? Stone is material for Christ's sake! It isn't wallpaper, right? It's not millimeters thick. I just don't want stone to look like paper..."
John Sailer, The Great Stone Architects, Tradelink Publishing (Oradell, NJ: 1991).

On the relationship of conceptual design to building technology: quote by Piet Mondrian.

"If one takes technique, utilitarian requirements, etc., as the point of departure, there is a risk of losing every chance of success, for intuition is then troubled by intelligence."
L'Architecture Vivante (Autumn, 1925), p.11; quoted in Collins, Peter. Concrete: The Vision of a New Architecture, 2nd edition. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004, p.281.

On construction failures: quote by Benjamin Latrobe.

"I am very sorry the arches have fallen, both on account of the expense & the disgrace of the thing. But I have had such accidents before, and on a larger scale, & must therefore grin & bear it."
Letter to Latrobe's clerk of the works, written when informed of the collapse of a vaulted loggia connecting his Treasury Building; quoted in Sara Wermiel, The Fireproof Building, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, p.19.