Winning the competition for Frankfurt's Museum of Applied Art in '79 opened the door to a number of projects in Europe, especially as we were invited to join many design competitions.

For me [ Giovanni Lorenzo ] Bernini, [Francesco ] Borromini, and [Donato] Bramante have been as significant as Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn. I still marvel at their works, which have a quality and a timelessness that I seek to have in our projects.

The responsibility of an architect is to create a sense of order, a sense of place, a sense of relationship.

You can't escape the influence of architectural history.

We are all affected by Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, and Mies van der Rohe. But no less than Bramante, Borromini, and Bernini. Architecture is a tradition, a long continuum. Whether we break with tradition or enhance it, we are still connected to that past. We evolve.

I was in Taiwan recently and was completely amazed by the density of population. It makes New York look like no one is out on the streets.

We look at each one [project] and consider the context - what it is and what it can be - beyond the strictly functional concerns.