I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.

It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone.

You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature.

My father was an urchin that lived in Hell's Kitchen. He was part of a family of nine. I mean, there were times that were better and worse, but mostly, by the time we got to L.A., they'd lost whatever they had. And it was a sad time. And both he and I became truck drivers for different companies.

I don't think all buildings have to be iconic, but the history of the world has shown us that cultures build iconic buildings for their major public buildings.

When I went to Harvard and studied planning, I found I didn't have the skills or the strength to become the kind of public person who could go out and lobby government agencies.

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn'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.

A lot of people don't get it, but I design from the inside out so that the finished product looks inevitable somehow. I think it's important to create spaces that people like to be in, that are humanistic.