Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable.

I can't just decide myself what's being built. Someone decides what they want, then I work for them.

The architect Borromini's Quattro Fontane, a little church in Rome, is one of the most beautiful rooms in history.

We don't see the banality, but we accept banality. We accept it as inevitable, and it's not.

The idealism [in architecture] is in the formal arrangement, the relationship to the city, the use of materials that are available to me. That's where I say our powers are limited.

I found the material that people hated the most and used the most. So, I was going and try and see if I could play with it sculpturally.

I don't think all buildings have to be iconic, but the history of the world has shown us that cultures build iconic buildings for their major public buildings.