Architecture Is A Dangerous Mix Of Power

The Areas Of Consensus Shift Unbelievably Fast; The Bubbles Of Certainty Are Constantly Exploding.

The Acceptance Of Certain Realities Doesn't Preclude Idealism. It Can Lead To Certain Breakthroughs.

There Are Essentially Two Possibilities. One Is To Be, Shall We Say, An Average Architect And Do The Same Thing Everywhere. The Other Is To Let Yourself Be Inspired And Even Changed By The Unique Qualities Of The Place Where You're Building. We Always Try To Take The Second Approach.

Architecture Is A Hazardous Mixture Of Omnipotence And Impotence. It Is By Definition A C H A O T I C A D V E N T U R E... In Other Words, The Utopian Enterprise.

The Real Thing We Tried To Look At Is What Happens To A Society When The State Is Absent. At That Point, The State Had Really Withdrawn From Lagos; The City Was Left To Its Own Devices, Both In Terms Of Money And Services. That, By Definition, Created An Unbelievable Proliferation Of Independent Agency: Each Citizen Needed To Take, In Any Day, Maybe 400 Or 500 Independent Decisions On How To Survive That Extremely Complex System.