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.

My inspiration came from the land, ... and, of course, from Paul Klee . . . and the poetics of his paintings.

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.

Light has not just intensity, but also a vibration, which is capable of roughening a smooth material, of giving a three-dimensional quality to a flat surface.

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.

London is one of the most civilised places in the world for the procedure of making architecture and urban design.