Artist Robert Morris

"This is just plain fun. Making buildings that exist, just piling them on – stone and glass and concrete out of control. And the cranes mean that they will just continue on and on. Even the crazy cranes are part of the architecture – you’d think they’d all get in each other’s way."  -- Robert Morris

"I started with 3 classical Roman columns of three different orders and thought I’d wing it from there. On top of these I put three historic Italian style buildings -- one is actually at Yale. They looked like little bird houses. Then I decided to put a bridge connecting them which would help to determine their scale. Then since I had the bridge I put cars on it, giving it a further sense of scale. Then I thought the bottom was a little empty so I put in a tsunami."

"I knew from the start I wasn’t just going to do New Haven. I was going to do piece by piece, putting it together like a puzzle. I started with Harkness tower because it’s striking; it was the centerpiece of Yale when I went to school there. It was like a crossword puzzle – where something horizontal might fit into something vertical. I kept on doing vertical and horizontal, where there was an empty space.

"I started with the facade of a cathedral. I used color because I wanted to do something warm and luminous. And these places have, over the ages, acquired some color. I added dear friends and accomplices -- drafting tools, pens, brushes, and they all took on these colorations. So the tools become the subject."
-- Robert Morris

"Usually I start with a building that gets my attention, and I take it from there. With the sort of drawings that I do, it’s almost impossible to correct a mistake or reverse a wrong direction, so a bit of time and brooding goes into it. If I were a photographer it would be called a photo-montage. Each original drawing is done with micro-pens of various diameters and points, on archival drawing paper."  -- Robert Morris