The architecture per se isn't at fault. The more important factor, in my view, is the political neglect of these areas, which have essentially been cut off from other neighborhoods.

Criticism per se does not worry me. I've always solicited it as part of the design process.

That has been another interesting discovery: that basically a city [Lagos] could recover from a really deep, deep, deep pit.

Beauty isn't what I'm primarily interested in [in architecture]. I think appropriateness is more important.

There is no plateau of resting or stabilising. Once you are interested in how things evolve, you have a kind of never-ending perspective, because it means you are interested in articulating the evolution, and therefore the potential change, the potential redefinition.

There's nothing Dutch about my architecture.

In a script, you have to link various episodes together, you have to generate suspense and you have to assemble things - through editing, for example. It's exactly the same in architecture. Architects also put together spatial episodes to make sequences.