The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is.
Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.
Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing... layout, processes, and procedures.
A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous.
The principle of the design - the harmony, rhythm and balance are all the same with interior and fashion design.
Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.
I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it's often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation.
Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.
Sustainability can't be like some sort of a moral sacrifice or political dilemma or a philanthropical cause. It has to be a design challenge.
Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it's not a product; it's an understanding of human nature.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
As an architect, you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.
