I would describe the distinction between city and landscape like this: cities tend to excite and agitate me; they make me feel big or small, self-confident, proud, curious, excited, tense, annoyed... or they intimidate me. But the landscape, if I give it the chance, offers me freedom and serenity. Nature has a different sense of time. Time is big in the landscape while in the city it is condensed, just like the city’s space.

Details, when they are successful, are not mere decoration. They do not distract or entertain. They lead to an understanding of the whole of which they are an inherent part.

I grew up in a craftsman’s home, where things were done with our own hands. I did cabinetmaking for four years and I hated it.

I think the chance of finding beauty is higher if you don’t work on it directly. Beauty in architecture is driven by practicality. This is what you learn from studying the old townscapes of the Swiss farmers.

I need a close contact to the client, whoever it is, and a commitment of the client to go out and do a process together. I want to do the best for him. I need his respect and his patience. I want to work with a sophisticated person who’s interested in a good building and not in my name.

The bottom line may be that my inventing buildings is, indeed, a very private kind of activity. But it’s done to be shared. It is comforting and consoling. From the reactions I get I can see I’m not doing something strange.

I’ve said goodbye to the overworked notion that architecture has to save the world.

If you’re lucky, and a building succeeds, the real product has many more dimensions than you can ever imagine. You have the sun, the light, the rain, the birds, the feel.

If, early on, you know how things are put together, then you can build. The architect is in charge of making – he is not an artist.

I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It’s not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.