Escape from the architecture ghetto is one of the major drivers and has been from the very beginning.
There's nothing Dutch about my architecture.
We felt it was very important for an entity like CCTV to make its presence felt... To generate a space and to define a space, that is the main thing.
Miami Beach is a completely interesting hybrid because it is, on the one hand, a resort and, on the other hand, a real city. This condition of city and water on two sides I think is really amazing. And in the heart of that city, it has put an enormous convention center, an enormous physical presence.
The word 'celebrity' and the word 'architect' are basically incompatible.
As an architect, I always have mixed feelings. On the one hand, your fingers are itching. As a human being, you are happy to participate in the indolence.
I think one of the important evolutions is that we no longer feel compulsively the need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit that certain things are completely instinctive and others are really intellectual.
Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands.
That has been my entire life story, running against the current and running with the current. Sometimes running with the current is underestimated.
But now sustainability is such a political category that it's getting more and more difficult to think about it in a serious way. Sustainability has become an ornament.
I am incredibly bad at predicting the future; I am only smart enough to observe the present and listen to my intuition about tendencies.
We say we want to create beauty, identity, quality, singularity. And yet, maybe in truth these cities that we have are desired. Maybe their very characterlessness provides the best context for living.
We live in an almost perfect stillness and work with incredible urgency.
