You can't escape the influence of architectural history.

The world has changed a great deal from when I began 50 years ago. I was very fortunate. There were a lot of opportunities that perhaps don't exist today.

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.

An important work of architecture will create polemics.

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

When I am asked what I believe in, I say that I believe in architecture. Architecture is the mother of the arts. I like to believe that architecture connects the present with the past and the tangible with the intangible.

Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.