Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice - or of an architect who didn't bother to find out why buildings stand up?
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When one puts up a building one makes an elaborate scaffold to get everything into its proper place. But when one takes the scaffold down, the building must stand by itself with no trace of the means by which it was erected. That is how a musician should work.
Architecture is not a profession for the faint-hearted, the weak-willed, or the short-lived.
I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.
An architect must remember that the people working or living in his building need space - to dream, to be quiet, to find beauty somewhere.
As an architect, you have to provide a shelter to enjoy art. And you have to love art. It's like when you make a concert hall. You must love music. This is the reason why you make the space, to enjoy music - making a space for art is the same thing.
As a teenager, my father took me to the shows at the Architectural Association and to places like Milton Keynes back when it was first being built. But I couldn't find anything for me. There seemed to be despair at the possibility of the built environment possessing any imagination in the real world.
I don't think I could have ever had a career as a pianist because I never ever wanted to play the notes the way they were written, I was too sloppy to learn them quite right.
Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted... to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home.
I come from a long line of architects. I'm the only one who did not become an architect, but I've been around the drawing aspect and construction my whole life.
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.