The institutions are working better now, the banks are much more functional. At this time, 1997, there were no mobile phones! It's a whole different thing now with mobile phones: technology has created a form of regulation, because people can actually talk to each other a lot more.

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.

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

Lagos was not very inviting even to Lagosians. It was considered a no-go zone, almost in its entirety.

The word 'celebrity' and the word 'architect' are basically incompatible.

Our office acts like a kind of educational establishment and we are very careful who we educate.

The people from the suburbs are bringing along their suburban values: cleanliness, orderliness, safety - dullness, in other words. As a result, urban areas are being hollowed out. Just look at Times Square in New York. No more sex shops, no drugs, no homeless people. The area is clinically clean and incredibly dull.