Moshe Safdie

Architecture should be rooted in the past, and yet be part of our own time and forward looking.

I want my buildings to take root and look as if they've always been there. It isn't about pastiche or adapting what's already there. It's about trying to blend the future and the past.

I think you need to, as an architect, understand the essence of a place and create a building that feels like it resonates with the culture of a place. So my buildings in India or in Kansas City or in Arkansas or in Singapore, they come out different because the places are so different.

Architecture is changing faster than some other professions.

Performing arts buildings are complex. The acoustics, the sight lines and all that have to just be perfect. So you begin with just making these things sublime as musical instruments. And if you fail there, you have failed it all.

I don't think I have a signature style that announces, 'This is a Safdie.' But I think star architects have seized an opportunity to go anywhere in the world to produce meaningless buildings.

I try firstly to make buildings humane.

I grew up in a country where the environment was very social justice-oriented.

There is a profound ethic to architecture which is different from the other arts.

I have a passion for libraries. They are potentially real community centers.

A painter, a sculptor, a writer, they can express freely. They don't affect society as a whole. We build buildings that have a purpose, that stay there for hundreds of years or decades.

I'm completely taken and impressed by the planning authority of Singapore and its Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). It's the most cutting-edge agency in the world. They have very effective guidelines for development, and they review design as it evolves.