If a dictator takes up my ideas, the resulting town will survive the political system that commissioned it and stand as a social good. Besides, modernism rather than classicism has dominated the architecture of totalitarian regimes of both the left and right.

Viewed from a certain distance and under good light, even an ugly city can look like the promised land.

As is the case with all good things in life - love, good manners, language, cooking - personal creativity is required only rarely.

I don't build because I am an architect. I can make true architecture because I do not build.

You need a prince to make a town in an intellectual sense. Developers want to make money. If they cared about architecture, they'd become architects. I've had so many projects that never came off because they had no sponsor, and not because they were utopian. I just want to build a town that's normal.

Authentic architecture is not the incarnation of the spirit of the age but of the spirit, full stop.

The problem was Le Corbusier was a genius and an enormous artist, but he tried to resolve problems to which there is no solution. So the idea to demolish the centre of Paris in order to adapt it to the car - he drew it! - is something not even the most bloody dictators conceived.