Thom Mayne

"I've always been interested in an architecture of resistance - architecture that has some power over the way we live. Working under adversarial conditions could be seen as a plus because you're offering alternatives. Still, there are situations that make you ask the questions: 'Do I want to be a part of this?'"

"The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value."

"Architecture is the beginning of something because it's - if you're not involved in first principles, if you're not involved in the absolute, the beginning of that generative process, it's cake decoration."

"Do I provoke as a method of investigation? Of course. That's the essence of architecture. Do I do it with gusto? I do."

"I don't know any architects that I respect who don't have their own voice. I think the difference between architecture and the other arts is your immersion in reality."

"In architecture, you arrive so late. I look at doctors, lawyers I know, and they're all buying boats and bailing out at 62. My career is just getting started."

"Architecture is the story of how we see ourselves. It is the architect's job to service everyday life."

"You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us."

"Architecture is a negotiated art, and it's highly political, and if you want to make buildings, there is diplomacy required."

"Architecture is a result of a process of asking questions and testing them and re-interrogating and changing in a repetitive way."

"Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art."

"But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour."

"I fought violently for the autonomy of architecture. It's a very passive, weak profession where people deliver a service. You want a blue door, you get a blue door. You want it to look neo-Spanish, you get neo-Spanish. Architecture with any authenticity represents resistance. Resistance is a good thing."

"I have a preference for rough architecture, real, inexpensive, unfinished."

"Somehow, architecture alters the way we think about the world and the way we behave. Any serious architecture, as a litmus test, has to be that."