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

It's about how to bring together the seemingly contradictory aspects of the memorial, which is about a tragedy and how it changed the world, but also about creating a vital and beautiful city of the 21st century.

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.

We live in a time of renaissance ... cities are coming back to life, after a long neglect.

What is a habit? It’s just a shackle for ourselves.

Only through acknowledgment of the erasure and void of Jewish life can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future.

You cannot suddenly make Lower Manhattan into a sad place because we saw such a dramatic loss of life. You have to balance the memory, which is so important, and use it as a kind of Archimedean Point to create a lively, incredibly interesting, and culturally significant piece of a city and neighborhood.