We should celebrate variety rather than conformity and allow people to express themselves. That we don't is more of our denial.

Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone. It can for children - for anyone. It still does for me.

You can't ignore history; you can't escape it even if you want to. You might as well know where you come from, and you might as well know that everything has been done in some shape or form.

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.

Cardboard is another material that's ubiquitous and everybody hates, yet when I made furniture with it everybody loved it.

I attended a lecture by a gray-haired old man from Finland, who later I discovered was the architect Alvar Aalto. I was very moved. I wasn't interested in architecture, but it was a moving thing I've never forgotten.

In the Renaissance there wasn't a distinction. Bernini was an artist and he made architecture, and Michelangelo also did some great architecture.