Let's Put It This Way:

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.

There Are Essentially Two Possibilities. One Is To Be, Shall We Say, An Average Architect And Do The Same Thing Everywhere. The Other Is To Let Yourself Be Inspired And Even Changed By The Unique Qualities Of The Place Where You're Building. We Always Try To Take The Second Approach.

I Studied In London In 1968. Our School Had A Separate Department Of Tropical Architecture. Of Course It Was Totally Unfashionable, Partly Because Nobody Wanted To Think About Colonialism, But Basically What You Learned There Was That, Ok, The Sun Is Here, So You Should Create Natural Ventilation Here - An Unbelievable Amount Of Really Sound Principles That Have Been Completely Abandoned, So Now Everything Is Air Conditioned With Big Machines.

Everyone Is Talking About Sustainability And Resilience, Yet All That Knowledge Is Thrown In The Bin. [lagos Is] A Unique Case, But Also A Test Case. It's Unbelievably Unique, But Also It's Now Considered With A Number Of Really Generic Opinions, Generic Solution, Generic Expectations.

Asia Is Still Dominated By Skyscrapers. I Hope That, In European Cities, It Will Become A Declining Trend. They Were Almost Never Necessary.