My Father Always Told Me That I

One Of My Unsung Heroes Is Erich Mendelsohn. I Met Him When I Was A Student And He Was A Cranky Old Man And Very Unpleasant. But If You Go To His Einstein Tower In Potsdam, Germany You See An Enormous Intellect At Work With A Language That Was Personal And New. It Has A Sense Of Urban Design And Of Theater And Procession I Hadn't Seen Before.

What I Have Learned About Museum Buildings Is That Buildings Have To Have Iconic Presentations. The Position Of The Art Museum Vis-a-vis Other Civic Buildings Needs To Be Hierarchal In The Community. It Has To Be Equal To The Library And The Courthouse.

It's Not New That Architecture Can Profoundly Affect A Place, Sometimes Transform It.

Many People Put A Green Button On Their Collar And Feel Good, Just Like A Lot Of People Put An American Flag On Their Lapels And Feel Patriotic. It's Not Enough.

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.