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

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

One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.

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, but art vastly contaminated by many other things. Contaminated in the best sense of the word – fed, fertilised by many things.

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

Cities are beautiful because they are created slowly; they are made by time. A city is born from a tangle of monuments and infrastructures , culture and market, national history and everyday stories. It takes 500 years to create a city, 50 to create a neighborhood.