Architecture Interviews

Alessandra Rampazzo and Marcello Galiotto: “Passion is what guides us”

Antoine Predock: “You keep the doorway open”

Arine Aprahamian: “Small changes go a long way”

Ben van Berkel: “I want to stay experimental”

Bjarke Ingels: “What is the standard solution not doing?”

César Pelli: “One aspires for the sky”

Daniel Libeskind: “I never had a goal”

David Chipperfield: “There is no defining moment”

Dimore Studio: “We try and hit all of the senses”

Francine Houben: “What’s most important is the senses”

Francis Kéré: “There’s an element of fantasy”

Ini Archibong: “I have to stay spiritually in tune”

Jeanne Gang: “How could this be transformed?”

John Pawson: “It’s everything you need, but nothing extra”

José Selgas and Lucía Cano: “There should be a why”

Joshua Ramus: “I’m not saying that it’s easy”

Kengo Kuma: “Light gives us a message”

Lina Ghotmeh: “Identity is never fixed”

Ma Yansong: “It’s about the spirit behind it”

Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi: “Storytelling is what we do”

Michael Maltzan: “That changes the dynamic”

Ole Scheeren: “How can we break the mold?”

Studio KO: “As long as it feels honest”

Sumayya Vally: “Architecture is an assertion of who we are”

Tadao Ando: “There is no such thing as creation from nothing”

Thom Mayne: “They want you to be left or right”

Tom Kundig: “Functionality is beauty”

Winy Maas: “Loyalty has its limits”
Life
- “I think all actors have to be dreamers. I think every citizen of every kind of society has to dream. If you stop dreaming, it’s over.”Bruce DernUS, Actor
- “The more experience you have, the more time you’ve spent on this earth, the more regrets you accumulate. It’s normal. You can’t do everything right, nobody’s perfect. But if you think too much about that, you’re not here. You have to make some efforts to stay open-minded.”Viggo MortensenUS, Actor
- “You better make every moment count. Live your life now; start in the morning. You mustn’t sit around waiting to die.”Michael CaineUK, Actor
- “I work till the breath goes out of me, and that might be at one or two or even four or five (in the afternoon). The point is that you must work every day if you ever expect to let the vision take hold of you.”T.C. BoyleUS, Author
- “If you are ambitious, you are running in a tunnel that never ends. You will always find something new to go after.”Curtis ‘50 Cent’ JacksonUS, Musician
- “I think the final circle in being an artist is connecting, making some conversation to the world you’re in. I think if you have that feeling of why you need to do something, you’ll find a way. And I think that really takes you forward! If you’re feeling that, maybe other people need that to.”Elizabeth PeytonUS, Artist
- “For me it’s a lot about physicality, about how I feel. When you have these hardships or when you see someone you love in pain or you struggle, all the petty shit goes away. You are like, “I can’t believe I was worried about this other thing,” when you see what really matters.”Amy SchumerUS, Comedian
- “We're not having to run from predatory animals like we did for hundreds of thousands of years before. So now we have to make up new activities to fulfill those emotional needs. There is a certain something about the ever-present danger of death that makes living so great.”Laird HamiltonUS, Surfer
- “My work and my life are the same thing to me. I don’t have a life on one side and work on the other side. My entire life has been my work. I don’t have a family, I am by myself, I have made very strict choices.”Brigitte LacombeFrance, Photographer
- “I would say that a strong work ethic is a vital ingredient for success. That’s something I was born with, I’m convinced of it; it was nothing that I acquired. If you take on anything, you try to do it your best.”Clive DavisUS, Record Producer
- “In life it’s about opening yourself up. It’s about tapping into your instincts and your energies. I think I got very good at that. I have to be open and I have to be open to the possibilities.”Mick RockUK, Photographer
- “I think my love of pushing the boundaries in film comes from my desire as a kid to do something artistic that would amaze people. I wanted to do nothing less than that. Those are the projects that I love: figuring out what might just be possible but hasn't been done yet.”James CameronCanada, Film Director
- “You’re always looking for a second chance. You’re always looking to do a little bit better than you did the last time. And you hope that the readers will stay with you.”Stewart O’NanUS, Author
- “You can work hard at this skill forever, you never reach the end; you never are a master, you’re never done. Writing is endless and I like that. I like that you can never conquer it.”Sheila HetiCanada, Author
- “I used to tease the other kids because I played better than them. Then my father said, ‘Come here. Don’t do this with the kids, because God gave you the gift to play football. You didn’t do anything. You have to respect people, be a good person. From now on, you must be this example.’”PeléBrazil, Football Player
- “I feel very lucky. There is luck behind me, there’s luck in front of me, there’s luck ahead of me. But that is a perspective that requires a lot of work. It doesn’t come naturally.”Jonathan Safran FoerUS, Author
- “Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”Wayne McGregorUK, Choreographer
- “The journey of an artist is a journey of discovery and some engagement with the nature of material, with bodily things and all that has led me to this place. I’m really interested in that as a process because the process moves you in directions that you couldn’t rationally put there.”Anish KapoorUK, Artist
- “If you have to defend something that you like, it makes you to like it even more. My parents hated the comic strips, they hated rock ‘n’ roll, and when they found out what movies I was going to they also were against that. So everything I loved I had to defend.”Wim WendersGermany, Film Directorwim
- “It’s easy to have inspiration and have a vision and an aesthetic, but if you don’t have the execution and you don’t get it out there properly and on time, it doesn’t matter. It’ll sink.”Rick OwensUS, Fashion Designer
- “My whole purpose in life is to communicate what I’m doing. I see myself as a modern nomad and a soldier at the same time. Being mainstream won’t change me because once I have something to perform, a task, then I’m a soldier. And I’ve always been a soldier.”Marina AbramovićSerbia, Artist
- “I act on intuition. I just let my intuition go in situations of fear. I live from my heart. I will continue doing things the way I have done them my whole life. And it gave me mostly a great time.”Antonio BanderasSpain, Actor
- “There is a thing called discipline. If you really want to do it, you’ve got to put in the work. Work, work, work, work. Practice, practice, practice, practice.”Kevin KlineUS, Actor
- “The truth. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. And that’s it! May it be ugly, may it be beautiful, may it be perverse, may it be all of those things. That’s it, I can’t lie; it is what it is, unabashed, naked. I expect that of myself, that’s for sure.”Steve McQueenUK, Film Director
- “I think as you are growing up, deciding what you want to do is really the process of elimination rather than gravitating towards something until you land on what really makes you happy.”Ian SchragerUS, Entrepreneur
- “Belief is very important. It’s like when you are riding a horse and you want it to go to the left, you look to the left first and then pull the horse’s head. As a human being it is the same thing: wherever you put your attention is probably where you are going to find yourself.”Colin FarrellIreland, Actor
- “I have the freedom to express myself. And it doesn’t matter if somebody’s going to pay me or pat me on the back for it. I chose to do things that I embrace, that I feel passionate about for whatever reason and I create my freedom around that.”Joel EdgertonAustralia, Actor and Film Director
- “I think you get more confident as you get older. You realize what your strengths and weaknesses are and you’re more okay with your weaknesses and you value your strengths more. I look forward to being 50 and I’m hoping that I’m as confident as some of the people that I look up to.”Elisabeth MossUS, Actress
- “Architecture is the oddest profession. In the beginning you're very much involved in finding your voice and locating yourself artistically. For 25 years you're working with small projects, domestic projects. And then you mature at 50 and you're given your first projects.”Thom MayneUS, Architect
- “Art is something about everyday life. Art is about finding creativity in the normal gutter next to you. To see the potential in something where there is no potential is often where art or creativity is a great tool. It’s about making the impossible possible.”Olafur EliassonDenmark, Artist
- “I think the best you can do for yourself is let your subconscious drive you, instead of doing things because you want to achieve some sort of glory.”Luca GuadagninoItaly, Film Director
- “I never thought of art as a career. I thought it was more like a monastic practice. It is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it. Obviously I’m not perfect but the thing I am best at is painting.”Julian SchnabelUS, Artist
- “I like the accidents, the things that happen by chance. I let the life come to the picture and the creativity flow.”Paolo RoversiItaly, Photographer
- “Sometimes when you lose faith and you understand that something will never be possible the way that you dreamed, but you keep trying, suddenly one thing flips and everything re-accommodates. It totally flows. You don’t give up — and suddenly it’s almost a transcendental thing.”Alejandro IñárrituMexico, Film Director
- “I think an ambition as a performer, and maybe even in life, is to become less afraid. Some boundaries are necessary of course and some are accepted, but the ones that I don’t want, I want to remove.”Willem DafoeUS, Actor
- “One day I realized that it didn’t matter whether people loved me or not. I was released of all that insecurity when I released myself from that fantasy and came to the conclusion that I could be happy making music regardless of whether I was successful or not.”Shirley MansonUK, Musician
- “Wherever any of us have been wounded, if we dive into what those wounds are, if we go down into and do the hard work within those wounds, we’ll actually find ourselves, we’ll find our real giftedness, a sincere, true giftedness.”Andrew GarfieldUK, Actor
- “I’m trying to not play it safe. I learn more when I fail than when I succeed, so if I push myself to do something that’s really difficult, I could fail and I’ll learn a lot. But if I don’t fail, then I’ll be in a great movie. I hope to be the kind of actor that isn’t always great.”Jessica ChastainUS, Actor
- “I always try to concentrate on the process and where the real goal is, which is trying to get up every day and be the best possible version of myself and do the best work I can do.”Charlie HunnamUK, Actor
- “I don’t want to be pigeonholed — it’s important to keep evolving, experimenting and reinventing yourself, otherwise it’s like hitting a drum, the same note over and over again. I think you should want to change, to try different things.”Steve McCurryUS, Photographer