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.

It should begin much earlier with arts education in the American school system, which is sadly deficient.

Art is about people. I think the discussion about whether architecture is art or not is lamebrain.

We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that.

That's why you go into architecture - at least I did - to do things for people. I think most of us are idealists. You start out that way, anyway.

You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature.

It's a metaphor for what we're being told: "Just stay in the box, kid, don't muddy the water." Parents say it to their kids. Teachers say it. Schools do. And so people become immune to the sameness.