Most of our cities built since the war are bland. They're modernist, they're cold, and now architects want to go back to that.

Everyone has a desire, if not a need, to use their individual signatures. Whenever people meet to talk about a project, even stuffy old businessmen, they say they want to create something new.

Well, I've always just - I've never really gone out looking for work. I always waited for it to sort of hit me on the head.

If you're serious about being an architect, you've got to learn how to take responsibility. It's not fluff. You have to do every detail on every bloody piece of the building. You have to know how the engineering works. You have to know how the fittings go together. You have to master the mechanical, electrical, acoustical - everything.

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.

In an ideal world, pressure should come from below and from the top.

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