When they released Sidewalks of New York, there were some shots with the towers they were going to take out, and Ed told them no. I don't think they can deny the towers were a part of New York.
People say I design architectural icons. If I design a building and it becomes an icon, that's ok.
You've never seen Manhattan 'til you've flown right up the East River. It's beautiful.
After Notre Dame, what is there?
New York City has a tradition of great stations. There are cities in the world that don't have that. New York has it.
There is a sense of civic connection to the city when you light up iconic buildings or sites.
Los Angeles is a city of few hard targets. Its iconic buildings are private spaces, mostly residential, visible by invitation only or in the pages of a Taschen book. Its central industry is as mirage-like as the projection of light on a screen.
I don't think I have a signature style that announces, 'This is a Safdie.' But I think star architects have seized an opportunity to go anywhere in the world to produce meaningless buildings.
I don't think all buildings have to be iconic, but the history of the world has shown us that cultures build iconic buildings for their major public buildings.
My favorite thing about New York is the view, the skyline.
Like Grand Central Station, which is a marvelous building, the design and engineering of the Oculus will endure for many generations to come.
Owning great landmarks such as the Empire State Building or Trump Tower or the General Motors Building or the Plaza Hotel - there are certain just spectacular landmarks - it's an honor; it's really an honor.
I've heard a lot about the iconic buildings and all that Dubai has to offer and can't wait to experience it for myself.
There are hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the United States and in other countries, too. Wright lived into his 90s, and one of his most famous buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was completed just before his death. Wright buildings look like Wright buildings - that is their paradox.
I remember, many years ago, coming over the Brooklyn Bridge in the night and seeing the skyline of Manhattan, with the Twin Towers. This was, for me, a kind of religious experience.
Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs.
When people condemn me for designing iconic buildings in cities and not having an idea what a city is, they haven't done their homework. I started in urban design and city planning. It's just that when I got out of school there wasn't much of a market for that. There still isn't.
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.
Outside of advertising, the person who's influenced me most is quite possibly Frank Gehry.
I'm well into sort of Santiago Calatrava and people like that.
My favourite view is just up the road from my house where, if you look one way, you can see Alexandra Palace, and if you turn the other, you get a panoramic view of the whole of London, including the Gherkin and Canary Wharf.
I have to say that New York is so different than the New York in 'Friends.'
