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Architects feel empowered to give opinions about politics and sociology and philosophy without knowing much about it. Kind of in the same way that they think they can design furniture or fashion or utensils for dining.

Engineering, medicine, business, architecture and painting are concerned not with the necessary but with the contingent - not with how things are but with how they might be - in short, with design.

Not many architects have the luxury to reject significant things.

Some museum boards think that choosing an architect can be reduced to a science, but it comes down to a matter of taste, pure and simple. A shortlist of prospective designers speaks volumes about the likely outcome. If the candidates' styles are too divergent, the search committee doesn't know what it wants.

You have to accept as an architect to be exposed to criticism. Architecture should not rely on full harmony.

When you have rules to abide by, does that curtail you as a designer, or set you free? People think of classical architecture visually, but I think the brilliant part of it is actually spatial.

It's important for people who criticise architects - whether what they build is or isn't to your taste - to appreciate how they devote themselves and put everything into bringing a building into existence.

In the design process, there's a need to be culturally comprehensive.

Everything we design is a response to the specific climate and culture of a particular place.

My sense of designing is a mix of intuition and intellectual control.