Frank Gehry

I was in Peru and visited a building near Lima built by the Incas. It was low in height, with no windows at all, but all the way in the back there was air movement. And I couldn't figure out how they'd done it; it was incredible.

I never said I was opposed to the LEED program or to green building - I'm not.

There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories - simple.

You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature.

My buildings are all on budget.

There is a backlash against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling.

It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone.

Chicago's one of the rare places where architecture is more visible.

A lot of people don't get it, but I design from the inside out so that the finished product looks inevitable somehow. I think it's important to create spaces that people like to be in, that are humanistic.

Look, architecture has a lot of places to hide behind, a lot of excuses. 'The client made me do this.' 'The city made me do this.' 'Oh, the budget.' I don't believe that anymore.

An architect is given a program, budget, place, and schedule. Sometimes the end product rises to art - or at least people call it that.

Most of our cities built since the war are bland. They're modernist, they're cold, and now architects want to go back to that.