    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [June 17, 1998]
    [Pages 980-981]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Pritzker Architecture Prize Dinner
    June 17, 1998

        Thank you very much. Mr. Piano,
    congratulations, and thank you for your marvelous remarks. Professor
    Scully, thank you for the almost
    breathtaking education in such a short few moments. I thank J. Carter
    Brown and the prize jury and Jay and Cindy Pritzker and
    indeed the entire Pritzker family for this prize and for their many
    contributions to our Nation.
        Frank Lloyd Wright once said that every great architect is
    necessarily a poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time,
    his day, his age. Renzo Piano has certainly done
    that, and we congratulate him and thank him for his many gifts to our
    age.
        Your creations will endure as some of our century's most timeless
    gifts to the future. As Hillary said, we have invited all the American
    people to take part in a national celebration of the coming millennium,
    challenging individuals and communities across our country to think
    about what values and heritage we carry with us into the future, what
    gifts we want to leave to the future, what kind of millennium we want to
    build. I invite all of you to lead us in that celebration.
        Professor Scully once said that architecture is the continuing
    dialog between the generations. Well, tonight I thank all of you who
    have shaped that dialog, and I ask you to help to tell the American
    story in a new century. Our buildings, our monuments embody our frontier
    spirit, our exuberance, our optimism, our determination. In honoring the
    past, you can help us to imagine the future that will continue to be
    full of all those good qualities.
        Let me say, tonight I listened carefully to what everyone else said.
    I couldn't remember--I couldn't believe that Professor Scully remembered
    the story I told him about the Jefferson Monument. I don't believe
    anyone pointed out that while James Hoban as a relatively unknown young
    Irish architect actually built this White House, he did it by defeating
    an anonymous plan presented by Thomas Jefferson. [Laughter] But it is
    just as well, because Mr. Jefferson was the architect of something even
    more important than the White House. He built the American creed.
        I might say parenthetically, in America ever since then, all
    politicians have tried to convince people that they were architects. If
    you listen to them speak long enough, you will be convinced that we were
    all born in log houses that we built ourselves. [Laughter]
        But on a serious note, think of the American creed: We hold these
    truths to be self-evident, that we are all created equal, endowed by God
    with the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We have
    bounded together ourselves because we cannot fully pursue, protect, or
    enhance these rights alone as individuals. And we dedicate ourselves to
    form a more perfect Union.
        In other words, we dedicate ourselves to an act of creating and
    building that will never be finished. An architect conceived of that.
        And I say that to you tonight on the edge of the millennium because
    Hillary and I and the members of our administration who are here, many
    in the Congress, and others, we've worked very hard these last 5\1/2\
    years to build a good house for America where everybody has a home,
    where we share the same foundation and the protection of the same roof
    and the same walls, where we respect our differences and value our
    unity.
        And now together we have to build at least the foundations for
    America's home and the world's home in a new century. Yes, it will need
    steel and stone and wood and glass and light and air and trees and
    garden, music and quiet; it also will need a lot of vision and hope.

    [[Page 981]]

        The longer I serve in public life, in many ways, the more idealistic
    I become, but I see day-in and day-out that the world is composed of
    builders, wreckers, and idlers. And most people in politics are either
    builders or wreckers. All of you are, by nature, instinct, training, and
    will, builders. The country and the world needs its builders, those with
    imagination and hope and heart who understand that with all the
    differences that exist in the world, our common humanity and our common
    relationship to the eternal and to our earthly home is far, far more
    important.
        In the end, that is what we have honored tonight, and America is in
    your debt. Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:55 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Renzo Piano, 1998 Pritzker
    Architecture Prize laureate; Vincent J. Scully, Jr., Sterling professor
    emeritus, Yale University; J. Carter Brown, chairman, Pritzker Prize
    jury; and Jay A. Pritzker, president, Hyatt Foundation, and his wife,
    Cindy.