Photo: Carter Berg; Interior Design: Bunny Williams
These wise words from some of history's most influential architects and designers, including Albert Hadley, Bunny Williams, and Zaha Hadid, are sure to inspire you.
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1
Albert Hadley
Michael Stillwell
"The essence of interior design will always be about people and how they live. It is about the realities of what makes for an attractive, civilized, meaningful environment, not about fashion or what's in or what's out. This is not an easy job."
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2
Billy Baldwin
Michael Stillwell
"Be faithful to your own taste, because nothing you really like is ever out of style."
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3
Bunny Williams
Michael Stillwell
"I like an interior that defies labeling. I don't really want someone to walk into a room and know that I did it."
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4
Charles Eames
Michael Stillwell
"The details are not the details. They make the design."
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5
Charlotte Moss
Michael Stillwell
"There are two things that make a room timeless: a sense of history and a piece of the future."
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6
David Hicks
Michael Stillwell
"The best rooms have something to say about the people who live in them."
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7
Dorothy Draper
Michael Stillwell
"I always put in one controversial item. It makes people talk."
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8
Elsie de Wolfe
Michael Stillwell
"I am going to make everything around me beautiful—that will be my life."
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9
Frank Gehry
Michael Stillwell
"Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness."
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10
Frank Lloyd Wright
Michael Stillwell
"Form follows function—that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union."
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11
Juan Montoya
Michael Stillwell
"A room should never allow the eye to settle in one place. It should smile at you and create fantasy."
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12
Mark Hampton
Michael Stillwell
"Real comfort, visual and physical, is vital to every room."
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13
Norman Foster
Michael Stillwell
"As an architect, you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown."
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14
Sister Parish
Michael Stillwell
"Innovation is often the ability to reach into the past and bring back what is good, what is beautiful, what is useful, what is lasting."
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15
Zaha Hadid
Michael Stillwell
"Architecture is really about well-being. I think that people want to feel good in a space."
Monique Valeris is the home design director for Good Housekeeping, where she oversees the brand's home decorating coverage across print and digital. Prior to joining GH in 2020, she was the digital editor at Elle Decor. In her current role, she explores everything from design trends and home tours to lifestyle product recommendations, including writing her monthly column, "What's in My Cart."