I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If you look at a building by Mies van der Rohe, it might look very simple, but up close, the sheer quality of construction, materials and thought are inspirational.
When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history and its sensuous qualities.
I think a construction project for me is like writing a novel. I can't do the project unless I can envision sort of the whole structure and see what the end result might be.
Building is just skilled labor, I suppose. It's a lot of work. I don't mind other people building them, but the way things go together and are made is interesting to me; I like that a lot.
It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.
My architecture tends to be legible, light and flexible. You can read it. You look at a building, and you can see how it is constructed. I put the structure outside.
Since Stonehenge, architects have always been at the cutting edge of technology. And you can't separate technology from the humanistic and spiritual content of a building.
Architecture is not an inspirational business, it's a rational procedure to do sensible and hopefully beautiful things; that's all.
When drawings of the main buildings I have designed in the last five years are juxtaposed, the fact that they all involve the pursuit of certain configurations is obvious to anyone.
If, early on, you know how things are put together, then you can build. The architect is in charge of making - he is not an artist.