The responsibility of an architect is to create a sense of order, a sense of place, a sense of relationship.
I think white is the most wonderful color of all, because within it one can find every color of the rainbow.
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.
Architecture which enters into a symbiosis with light does not merely create form in light, by day and at night, but allow light to become form.
Whiteness allows the architectural ideas to be understood most clearly - the difference between opacity and transparency, solid and void, structure and surface. These things are more perceptible in a white environment. They have a greater clarity.
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.
You can't escape the influence of architectural history.
An important work of architecture will create polemics.
The work needs to have a certain longevity. It lasts longer than we do.
When I think of a place of worship, I think of a place where one can sit and be reminded of all the things that are important outside our individual lives. To express spirituality, the architect has to think of the original material of architecture, space and light.
It's important to understand differences in scale and environment.
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.
If I had my druthers, I would do a lot more.
We think about project's public nature and how that can be enhanced, how the spaces we create can enliven the experience of being there.
To be an architect has been a life-long dream. Little did I know when asked at the age of 14 'what do you want to do when you grow up?' I said I wanted to be an architect. After 50 years I am still learning all what that means. Working together with so many people has been enormously gratifying. Being an architect means being a member of a fantastic team.
Ultimately it's the public nature of those projects that I most enjoy. Museums are more than just places to view art, they're also civic and social centers.
Each museum is different - the collection is different, the context is different, the relationship between the art and architecture is different.
Rome has not seen a modern building in more than half a century. It is a city frozen in time.
We look at each one [project] and consider the context - what it is and what it can be - beyond the strictly functional concerns.
We learn a lot, and each museum ends up having its own distinctive character and personality.
For me [ Giovanni Lorenzo ] Bernini, [Francesco ] Borromini, and [Donato] Bramante have been as significant as Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn. I still marvel at their works, which have a quality and a timelessness that I seek to have in our projects.
One of the real challenges, since we're working in so many places - Mexico, Japan, Brazil - is understanding variations, both in terms of culture and context.
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.
Winning the competition for Frankfurt's Museum of Applied Art in '79 opened the door to a number of projects in Europe, especially as we were invited to join many design competitions.
I was in Taiwan recently and was completely amazed by the density of population. It makes New York look like no one is out on the streets.
