When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history and its sensuous qualities.

I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.

When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history and its sensuous qualities.

The first 10 years of my professional life had only to do with running away from my father. He was a wonderful cabinet-maker, and me being the eldest son, I had to take over his shop, his profession and so on and so on. I tried to escape by going to art school and then going on to industrial design and then interior design.

Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life.

There was a time when I experienced architecture without thinking about it.

What I try to do is the art of building, and the art of building is the art of construction; it is not only about forms and shapes and images.