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Roman history was kind of unavoidable where I was growing up. It was everywhere - all the place names and ruins and forts. My dad's a history buff, and I spent a lot of time on Hadrian's Wall. I became fascinated by the idea of what was so terrifying up there that the Romans built a 60-mile long, 30ft high stone wall to keep it out?

At school, we'd studied the Romans and the Saxons, and I was fascinated by it all. So I made my dad take me to the British Museum as often as possible.

One of my challenges was to try to photograph the Great Wall of China. And I did actually take some photos, but it was hard to discern the wall with the naked eye.

The thing I love about Rome is that is has so many layers. In it, you can follow anything that interests you: town planning, architecture, churches or culture. It's a city rich in antiquity and early Christian treasures, and just endlessly fascinating. There's nowhere else like it.

I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere.

I was always fascinated, even as a child, by antiques and ancient times. I always felt I should have been born in the 17th or 18th century. They really had a big stone castle with authentic furniture.

It is good to learn from the ancients. I'm a bit of an ancient myself. They had a lot of time to think about architecture and landscape.

I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

I was in Germany when the wall came down.