Student journeys which were important to me were Sicily, Greece, and Egypt, where I really saw these buildings, and that is where you're able to grasp what things mean.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think I went to Italy initially for the art, architecture, food and history, but I stayed there because of the people in Cortona.
Every one of my buildings begins with an Italian journey.
I grew up in Cyprus and Egypt, these fantastic places I remember fondly.
As architects we are often involved in the concrete-steel-and-glass aspect of it, but cities are social structures, and to be involved in imagining the future of cities and the type of relationships and the types of places that we're making is something that intrigues me very much.
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.
My mother took me to Venice one time and showed me all the houses where famous composers used to live. It gave me a fascination for music and the city, but also for architecture. It was a valuable lesson.
I've always liked traveling around Europe and seeing the architecture. The buildings in capital cities have been there for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Some look better than the new ones.
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.
I'm not mainly interested in what buildings mean as symbols or vehicles for ideas.
Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There's no looking at a building after seeing Italy.