Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.

Beijing is constructing a 100,000 m2 modern art museum, yet it will not feature any of my work.

In my case, I was stuck there for quite a while. New York is large enough to be a very abstract city, so nobody cares.

I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much. It was just a city with one emperor and the rest of them just rats or meaningless people.

Any design, any city, any kind of craziness or tragedy, it all comes from a long time of preparation.

The whole Chinese system - not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society - is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information. That's why the country can't face up to open competition - unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.

China and the U.S. are two societies with very different attitudes towards opinion and criticism. In China, I am constantly under surveillance. Even my slightest, most innocuous move can - and often is - censored by Chinese authorities.