I promised a lot of people I’d slow down when I turned 80.
When I was a kid, my father didn’t really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he didn’t think I would amount to anything. My mother also.
I think my best skill as an architect is the achievement of hand-to-eye coordination. I am able to transfer a sketch into a model into the building.
There is a backlash against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling.
There is stuff I would have liked to have done. But there are no sour grapes.
If I knew where I was going, I wouldn’t do it. When I can predict or plan it, I don’t do it.
There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories – simple.
Let the experience begin!
I work from the inside out.
I used to sketch – that’s the way I thought out loud. Then they made a book of my sketches, and I got self-conscious, so now I don’t do it much.
The fact is I’m an opportunist. I’ll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I’m searching for an idea that works.
I found the material that people hated the most and used the most. So, I was going and try and see if I could play with it sculpturally.
I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don’t get a lot of work sometimes.
For me, every day is a new thing.
You see a lot of so-called architecture that part of the ego trip overpowers the functionality and the budget and all that stuff.
The culture of France is unique because it’s a culture that has a high priority on the arts, more than any other place in the world in our time since Greece. So as a practicing artist, if you will, this is home ground. They love us, so music, literature, art continues to be the center.
Most of our cities built since the war are bland. They’re modernist, they’re cold, and now architects want to go back to that.
I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.
Chicago’s one of the rare places where architecture is more visible.
I never said I was opposed to the LEED program or to green building – I’m not.