Your best work is your expression of yourself.

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.

One of my greatest influences is the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

You've got to like the people you work with.

An architect is given a program, budget, place, and schedule. Sometimes the end product rises to art - or at least people call it that.

It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it.

Chicago's one of the rare places where architecture is more visible.