"No architect troubled to design houses that suited people who were to live in them, because that would have meant building a whole range of different houses. It was far cheaper and, above all, timesaving to make them identical"
About this Quote
The subtext is classic Ende: a fantasy writer using plain language to expose how bureaucratic “efficiency” becomes a kind of spell. “Far cheaper and, above all, timesaving” sounds like a neutral justification until you hear what’s missing: dignity, intimacy, belonging. Ende’s rhythm mirrors the rationalization itself, piling up economic excuses that feel reasonable in isolation, then revealing their cumulative violence. Identical houses aren’t just boring; they train people to accept interchangeability as normal.
Context matters. Writing in postwar West Germany’s long shadow of reconstruction, mass housing, and booming consumer standardization, Ende had reasons to distrust the idea that progress equals speed. His work repeatedly warns that time-saving is never free; someone pays, usually in imagination, community, or agency. Here, sameness is the architectural version of the assembly line: efficient, scalable, and quietly dehumanizing.
What makes the line work is its restraint. Ende doesn’t rant about soulless cities. He lets the logic of cost and time convict itself, then leaves the reader with the uncomfortable question: if our homes are designed for efficiency rather than living, what else is?
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ende, Michael. (n.d.). No architect troubled to design houses that suited people who were to live in them, because that would have meant building a whole range of different houses. It was far cheaper and, above all, timesaving to make them identical. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-architect-troubled-to-design-houses-that-3917/
Chicago Style
Ende, Michael. "No architect troubled to design houses that suited people who were to live in them, because that would have meant building a whole range of different houses. It was far cheaper and, above all, timesaving to make them identical." FixQuotes. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-architect-troubled-to-design-houses-that-3917/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"No architect troubled to design houses that suited people who were to live in them, because that would have meant building a whole range of different houses. It was far cheaper and, above all, timesaving to make them identical." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-architect-troubled-to-design-houses-that-3917/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.
