Somehow, architecture alters the way we think about the world and the way we behave. Any serious architecture, as a litmus test, has to be that.
I lived in a state of rage from 12 to 20. Until college, I was beyond an outsider. I was a voyeur of life.
It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world.
I'm often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That's impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more.
I think my clients would tell you I'm a problem solver. I'm not there to agree with people. I'm there to articulate a point of view. Am I insistent and tenacious? Absolutely. I could not get this work done if I was not.
Do I provoke as a method of investigation? Of course. That's the essence of architecture. Do I do it with gusto? I do.