Architects have to dream, we have to search for our Atlantises, to be explorers, adventurers, and yet to build responsibly and well.

In a way I spend my entire life stealing from everything - from the past, from cities I love, from where I grew up - grabbing things, taking not only from architecture but from Italy, art, writing, poetry, music.

Architecture is art. I don't think you should say that too much, but it is art. I mean, architecture is many, many things. Architecture is science, is technology, is geography, is typography, is anthropology, is sociology, is art, is history. You know all this comes together. Architecture is a kind of bouillabaisse, an incredible bouillabaisse. And, by the way, architecture is also a very polluted art in the sense that it's polluted by life, and by the complexity of things.

Every year I spend one month just sailing, but I still work when Im on the boat. You never separate work from leisure. A boat is like a magic world, like a little island.

Knowing how to do things not just with the head, but with the hands as well: this might seem a programmatic and ideological goal. It is not. It is a way of safeguarding creative freedom.

If you have total freedom, then you are in trouble. It's much better when you have some obligation, some discipline, some rules. When you have no rules, then you start to build your own rules.

A builder is like a little god - somebody who does things, doesnt just draw things.