When you're a kid with artistic yearnings brought up in the Bronx, you don't get fed up too easily.

We often judge cities by great public buildings. But we admire great cities because people live there in a beautiful way. You have to think about how each person will live there; you can't just think about abstract ideas.

Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It's based on wonder.

I'm not Candide, nor Dr Pangloss, but we know that faith moves mountains.

The truth is, the way you write music, it's a code. It has to be very precise. It's scientific, but ultimately it also depends on interpretation. It's very similar to how you grow a master plan: it's an objective document, but at the same time it is a lyrical document which allows through interpretation to become a harmonious work of art.

Architecture is not just for the moment, it is not just for the next fashion magazine.

In a strange way, architecture is really an unfinished thing, because even though the building is finished, it takes on a new life. It becomes part of a new dynamic: how people will occupy it, use it, think about it.