Each project, I suffer like I'm starting over again in life. There's a lot of healthy insecurity that fuels this stuff.

I don't know how to overcome this perception that I'm extravagant.

I love working. I don't know what the word vacation means.

I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.

The culture of France is unique because it's a culture that has a high priority on the arts, more than any other place in the world in our time since Greece. So as a practicing artist, if you will, this is home ground. They love us, so music, literature, art continues to be the center.

I make a model of the site. There are some obvious things: where the entrance should be, where the cars have to go in. You start to get the scale of it. You understand the client's needs, and what the client is hoping for and yearning for.

Just because you are an architect and make decent buildings does not mean that you can suddenly become a set designer for one of the best avant-garde dancers in the world.