I try to do everything from thinking about big issues like how a building fits into the larger stream of architectural history to practical issues such as how it feels to navigate your way through its interior.

Infrastructure creates the form of a city and enables life to go on in a city, in a certain way.

On New York subways in the 1980s: Riding on the IRT is usually a matter of serving time in one of the city's most squalid environments-noisy, smelly, crowded and overrun with a ceaseless supply of graffiti.

We identify New York with the great bridges and tunnels and roadways and subway system and so forth.

New York grew up before the automobile. And even though it's full of cars, its shape and form didn't get created around the automobile.

Right after 9/11 it looked as if the idea of a huge skyscraper might be considered obsolete. It came back, but I think that's more closely connected to the rise of Asian and Middle Eastern cities in the world economy (Dubai, Shanghai, Taipei, etc.) than anything else.

A suburban mall turned vertical.