3 Quotes & Sayings By Robert Haas

Robert G. Haas is the Thomas and Margot Pritzker Dean of the School of Design at Stanford University, where he has been on the faculty since 1979. He is the author of numerous books and articles on design and technology, including Designing Interaction (Wiley, 2007), The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design (MIT Press, 2000), and What Should I Do with My Life: The Definitive Guide to Finding Your Unique Path (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009). Prior to joining academia, he worked at Apple Computer and IBM Research Read more

His research interests include design and technology; usability; visual perception; human-computer interactions; and human cognition.

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A word is elegy to what it signifies. Robert Haas
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The way in which art creates desire, I guess that’s everywhere. Is there anyone who hasn’t come out of a movie or a play or a concert filled with an unnameable hunger? … To stand in front of one of [Louis Sullivan’s] buildings and look up, or in front, say, of the facade of Notre Dame, is both to have a hunger satisfied that you maybe didn’t know you had, and also to have a new hunger awakened in you. I say “unnameable, ” but there’s a certain kind of balance achieved in certain works of art that feels like satiety, a place to rest, and there are others that are like a tear in the cosmos, that open up something raw in us, wonder or terror or longing. I suppose that’s why people who write about aesthetics want to distinguish between the beautiful and sublime… Beauty sends out ripples, like a pebble tossed in a pond, and the ripples as they spread seem to evoke among other things a stirring of curiosity. The aesthetic effect of a Vermeer painting is a bit like that. Some paradox of stillness and motion. Desire appeased and awakened. . Robert Haas