When I finished high school, I was 16, and in Argentina you have to choose a career right after high school. There is no such thing as a liberal arts education.
I had come from Los Angeles - I had been there a partner of Gruen Associates, a large Los Angeles firm - and when the possibility of becoming a dean at Yale came, it was a very appropriate moment in my life. I was interested in a number of issues that I could not pursue while in a firm like Gruen's.
Too many architects are just trying to make all of their buildings look like a brand, and that may be good for business, but that is terrible for the cities because they lose character. If I go to Paris, I go to see the beauty of Paris and the coherence of Paris.
People get very excited about very high elements. That's why Mount Everest is so important - it's not the most difficult mountain, but it's the most famous because it's the tallest.
There may be some changes in building codes, but I don't see any stylistic departure that you'll be able to attribute to Sept. 11.
We are very proud of our design for the Transbay Transit Center. This will be a beautiful, functional and sustainable building for San Francisco.
The World Trade Center was for me not only out of scale vertically, but it was also out of scale in plan. It occupied several blocks that were all massed together.
