"We have tools at hand: out of raw materials we are to construct works to make the intellect react"
Ozenfant and Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), from 'Après le Cubisme' 1918

"Architects, painters and sculptures must learn to know and to understand the many aspects of building both in its totality and in all its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued again with the architectonic spirit it has lost to 'salon art'."
Walter Gropius, from his Bauhaus manifesto 1919

"I believe that painting, sculpture and architecture need controllable form."
Theo van Doesburg, from De Stijl

"In front of a work of 'constructed' art never say: I can make nothing of it. It is not your intellect that is being appealed to, but your sensibility. Moreover this is true whether you feel it or not. But if you are ambitious to understand it as well, you had better be more demanding of your intellect than that.
"Don't ask: what does it mean? A work of art is not a piece of wizardry. A painting cannot speak.
"Don't visit exhibitions and painter's studios in the spirit of 'getting to the bottom of what it is all about'. Much better would be to live with a few works of 'constructed' art around you, without forcing yourself to study them. If you would just relax with them, they will tell you what they have to say."
Josef Peeters, from article published in Het Overzitht magazine 1923

"The basic and predominant art is architecture………"
Jean Gorin, from DATA 1964

"Constructive art is not made for the sake of materials or methods, these are all auxiliaries. Any work of art has to have some kind of a central idea, if you don't have this idea and wait for an accident, I don't believe it is a creative art."
Naum Gabo, from BBC film 1965