"I left science, then I went into art, but I approach things very analytically. I choose to pursue both art and architecture as completely separate fields rather than merging them"
"Furniture manufacturing in plastics requires very costly machinery, which the Danish market is not big enough to justify. Or so they say. But show me a plastics manufacturer who dares to take on the experiment"
"But inspiration? - That's when you come home from abroad and are asked: Well, have you found inspiration? - and fortunately you haven't. But the impressions sink in, of course, and may emerge later: None of us has invented the house; that was done many thousands of years ago"
"Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious"
"When I travel, I draw and paint sketches which is great fun. And as long as you are fully aware that it has nothing to do with actual art, I think that's all right"
"Harmony is an obscure and difficult musical science, but most difficult to those who are not acquainted with the Greek language; because it is necessary to use many Greek words to which there are none corresponding in Latin"
"The lanes and streets of the city being set out, the choice of sites for the convenience and use of the state remains to be decided on; for sacred edifices, for the forum, and for other public buildings"
"There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart. There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart"
"I pushed the process forward by saying, 'We should do this, this, and this right now. Please find the budget for me to find a structural engineer, a mechanical engineer, a civil engineer, so we can do the preliminary work.'"
"I think one of the important evolutions is that we no longer feel compulsively the need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit that certain things are completely instinctive and others are really intellectual"
"From the early days of European migration to America, in the 17th Century, the prototype of buildings was based on English precedent, even if mostly translated into the locally available material in abundance: timber"
"One of the things I thought a lot about was how can we get the views, for instance, the main plaza, you look up to Telegraph Hill from there and therefore it would be a disaster to close that view off"
"Architects in the past have tended to concentrate their attention on the building as a static object. I believe dynamics are more important: the dynamics of people, their interaction with spaces and environmental condition"
"We must learn to understand humanity better so that we can create an environment that is more beneficial to people, more rewarding, more pleasant to experience"
"Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders' spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground"