In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like.

Architecture is measured against the past, you build in the present, and try to imagine the future.

Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.

My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we - architects - can effect the quality of life of the people.

Technology cannot be an end in itself but must aim at solving long term social and ecological problems.

Architecture is about public space held by buildings.

The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.

As architects we have a responsibility to society

I don't understand why everyone has to wear black, grey and white.

As an artist, what do you think the biggest mistake you can make is? My vote for the biggest mistake is being afraid of making mistakes.

Architecture is a slow business, and city planning even slower.

You don't have to stop thinking and asking questions to believe in God, child. If He'd wanted a flock of eight billion sheep, He wouldn't have given us opposable thumbs, much less free will.

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but how we react to what happens, not by what life brings us but the attitude we bring to life.

It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter.

A thousand people will stop smoking today. Their funerals will be held sometime in the next three or four days.

I'm a late bloomer. Being a late bloomer is a problem when you decide at 40 you want to have children

There is no point in being confident and having a small position.

Some sorrows are but footprints in the snow, which the genial sun effaces, or, if it does not wholly efface, changes into dimples.

To act choicelessly is to act in accord with the situation. If someone throws a rock, you duck.

The world is always changed by people who don't listen to conventional wisdom. I think we often set our goals too small and try to accomplish them too quickly.

Friendships, even the best of them, are frail things. One drifts apart.