Valencia is a pure Mediterranean city; it is a city like Naples or Palermo, like Rome a little bit. Walking in the old town has a little bit of the flavor of the old city of Rome.
As a student I travelled around the Mediterranean - the Greek islands and Salerno on the south coast of Italy.
I like the word monument, because the word monument is a Latin word.
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is for the community of San Francisco. And the Brooklyn Bridge, which is one of the most magnificent bridges ever built, is also a monument to the community, you see.
The Taj Mahal is a monument to love in all cultures.
I visited Notre Dame at 11 in the morning and the sun was entering through the south rose window, it was so impressive. This is when architecture can be king and give people sensations, like music.
Because of the nature of the profession of architecture, the art of architecture nourishes itself from other disciplines.
The Freedom Tower has a cost overrun. A significant cost overrun.
The best is to go into a train station that I've built and buy a ticket. The guy in the ticket booth might recognize me, which is a marvelous feeling, but it might be that he doesn't and I go in like any other passenger, except that I enter with a critical eye, looking to see how it's held up.
The world of sculpture precedes by many years the world of architecture.
There is so much vulgarity in the everyday, that when somebody has the pretension to do something extraordinary for the community, then you have to suffer.
If I was not born in this lifetime in New York, certainly in a previous life, I was a New Yorker.
The first significant work I did was a railway station in Zurich called Stadelhofen.
A railway station is something that can generate a city.
I remember, many years ago, coming over the Brooklyn Bridge in the night and seeing the skyline of Manhattan, with the Twin Towers. This was, for me, a kind of religious experience.
Not only did America invent the skyscraper, it invented the skyline.
I always admired the U.S. as the country of the space shuttle, of technological achievement.
Something that's very important is to preserve the sense of surprise, the sense of discovery. The eye of the person you are talking to, your shadow on the ground. It's important not to get suffocated by all the things in life and lose that sense of surprise.
The reality is that throughout my career I've tackled projects in Spain that I'm proud of.
Architecture is a wrapping for the human body, and dance is the finest expression of the body.
