The Metropolis Strives To Reach

All Important Architecture Of The Last Century Was Strongly Influenced By Political Systems. Look At The Soviet System, With Its Constructivism And Stalinism, Weimer With Its Modern Style, Mussolini And, Of Course, The Nazis And Albert Speer's Colossal Structures. Today's Architecture Is Subservient To The Market And Its Terms. The Market Has Supplanted Ideology. Architecture Has Turned Into A Spectacle. It Has To Package Itself And No Longer Has Significance As Anything But A Landmark.

Lagos Has Also Had A Particular Effect On My Career. I Was There Early, And Although It Was A Courageous Step To Go There And Invest On This Scale - I Went There Maybe 20 Times - It's Also Been Also Super-controversial. There's An Old School Of Thought That Somebody Like Me Has No Place To Go There.because Of Colonialism And So On.

When Air Conditioning, Escalators, And Advertising Appeared, Shopping Expanded Its Scale, But Also Limited Its Spontaneity. And It Became Much More Predictable, Almost Scientific. What Had Once Been The Most Surprising Became The Most Manipulated.

I Like Fashion, Whether Or Not It's Overpriced, Because It Creates A Sense Of The Sublime With Relatively Few Means.

Without A Tighter Union, Europe Will Disintegrate