People commonly educate their children as they build their houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without considering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Young people can create beautiful things.
As a child, I had always wanted to know what lay at the end of a corridor or behind a door in a picture, so I did a floorplan and elevations of Angelina's house and learned my way around it. The idea was that children should start to feel at home in it.
Designing a house is like doing a movie: Once you're done, you want to say, 'I hope you all enjoy it.'
There are a lot of questions about whether architecture is art. The people who ask that think pretty tract houses are architecture. But that doesn't hold up.
Look at kids playing with blocks. I think it's in everyone's DNA to want to be a builder.
It's important for young people to know that they are made the way they are made and they're beautiful and that's how they're supposed to be.
I'm just fascinated by houses. In another life, I'd have probably trained as an architect. If I had enough money, I'd collect them like other people collect teapots. I don't know why I love them so much. I'm just very interested in the idea of a house as a metaphor for the way one lives.
Building your own house is a primal urge, one of those universal genetic drives like the need to provide for your family.
Children are a house's enemy. They don't mean to be - they just can't help it. It's their enthusiasm, their energy, their naturally destructive tendencies.
I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.