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.

My father always told me that I was going to be a failure - I think he was more talking about himself, but I didn't know it at the time.

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone. It can for children - for anyone. It still does for me.

I don't micromanage the interiors. People ask me to and I say no. I don't want to control everything.

Picasso could use everyone's paintings and transform them into his own. He was using ideas from all of his contemporaries.

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