I like the idea of trying to influence society by taking a brief, then maybe subtly changing it or looking at it in a new way to see what interesting things can emerge.
I remember my mother taking me to see the Picasso show in the 1940s, and I was impressed by the life and vibrancy of it all. It was a bit too avant-garde for most Londoners at the time, but since then, the city has become a centre for modern culture.
Of course I know very little about architecture, and the older I get the less I know.
Everyone has the right to walk from one end of the city to the other in secure and beautiful spaces. Everybody has the right to go by public transport. Everybody has the right to an unhampered view down their street, not full of railings, signs and rubbish.
If I remember rightly Holland for instance has something like 45, and it's a much smaller country. In comparison we have very few and they are very badly financed.
I think we did a pretty good role, linking, being a sounding board really and a driving force, especially from the bottom up. I think that part of this is bottom up as well as top down.
I think you could make a completely Virtual Centre, though I have a general feeling, and maybe because I am getting very old, that you still need face to face.
It is quite interesting that whilst there are tremendous theories, in the 1960s when IT was born, everybody was supposedly going to their cottage in the countryside to work in a virtual way.
If you live in a squalid environment, then of course you are going to want to get out of it, you are probably going to want to get into the country, because that's what it does.
So I think that, yes, anything that makes it more palatable and easier to understand, such as a Virtual Centre, has to be seen as a primary activity within the educational and information global state.
You know, the environment is fragmenting, and the environment is, in many places, absolutely hideous!
I'm just saying that there are high quality materials, and when we change them then there should be a way of changing them so that you can celebrate that change - rather than just 'mix it up'.
Cities are about juxtaposition.
I don't understand why everyone has to wear black, grey and white.
My mother was very family-oriented. And I do love being with my children.
There is a Jewish tradition of family, too, but then not all Italian or Jewish families are close.
Dyslexia, though, made me realise that people who say 'but you can't do that' aren't actually very important. I don't take 'no' too seriously.
Architecture is a slow business, and city planning even slower.
The gap between the rich and poor is widening fast.
Architects are not clients. We can't build without something to built.
