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  • If I have to do a building I have an image of what the building should be

  • and how it should be, what kind of atmosphere it should have.

  • And this is not a moral category or ethical category of honesty or not honesty or something.

  • This is more being truthful to my feeling for the place or my feeling for the task, for the use of the building.

  • Designing for me is sort of a physical act. At the end is a physical object and I have

  • and I have to make sure that I, as soon as possible, get in contact with this physical object I'm dreaming of.

  • And a dream is also in my case, if I dream of a building, it's an image. It's not an abstract thought.

  • I don't have any abstract dreams. I only have concrete dreams.

  • [laughs]

  • (Leah Kharibian) A lot of Renaissance depictions of architecture are works of the imagination.

  • They're dreamed buildings.

  • Sure

  • And this little painting by Ercole de' Roberti from about 1490,

  • where he imagines the stable of the Nativity

  • which suggests to him the origins of architecture,the wooden structure,

  • but it's also done in the very latest form, to a Renaissance viewer, the very latest form of architecture.

  • So he's both got a very primal and a very modern element going on at the same time.

  • And I wondered if that was something that was also in your work?

  • Time to me, I can only imagine, so that it really means something to me,

  • is the moment I live. I'm living, obviously, in this moment and I'm surrounded by things which come from the past.

  • I myself maybe 99% history. And if I look around

  • I'm surrounded by things which have been made by people, they might not even live anymore.

  • but there ...The trees outside they are older than me, and they will outlive me.

  • I love this. This gives me a feeling of, I must be part of something bigger.

  • So with this feeling doing houses means, yes, let’s do a house which can be a part of time.

  • Maybe, if it's successful as a building, and successful for me would be loved by people,

  • to use it or something. Then you can tell the building knows something about time,

  • knows about the time before and the time which might come.

  • So does the building have a form of intelligence if it's a good building?

  • The building has a form of soul. Intelligence to me is this laser line there.

  • I prefer to say it has a soul, or a heart. A soul is good, because this is the big thing.

  • Yes, a good building should have a soul.

If I have to do a building I have an image of what the building should be

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