I travel a lot. Japanese culture is very ancient and very strong. That's why most people who commission work from Japanese architects expect them to create works that have an element of exoticism, the kind typical of Japanese culture. I don't do that.

For me, there's no difference between what's temporary and what's definitive. I built the church in Kobe, which was supposed to be temporary, and people liked it so much that there's a version of it still there today - unlike some concrete buildings that were just built for money and that can be destroyed from one day to the next. Concrete can be very fragile during earthquakes.

Architecture is not about designing somehting from a free, fanciful idea. It is about discovering and establishing one's own principle, some kind of regularity - finding an individual formula to apply to one's buildings.

I believe that the material doesn’t need to be strong to be used to build a strong structure. The strength of the structure has nothing to do with the strength of the material.

People are not killed by earthquakes alone, but by collapsed buildings.

An architect does not need to spend his whole career making monuments for rich people.

I travel a lot. Japanese culture is very ancient and very strong. That's why most people who commission work from Japanese architects expect them to create works that have an element of exoticism, the kind typical of Japanese culture. I don't do that.