Elizabeth Diller

“We were kind of arrogant when we started and became really humbled as we were doing architecture. It's really hard to work with budgets and deadlines and all of these collaborators and all of these voices and special interests.”

“The public brings our buildings to life, and we try to choreograph a lot of things, but our most successful work functions in unanticipated ways. Like the Blur Building. When little kids got in there, they cried or laughed or ran around. And no matter how much theory we put on top of it, it didn't matter: it worked.”

“Theatre is real-time - you get that real-time audience reaction, which is fantastic. And with art pieces, people don't ever have to explain themselves. You can do something and really follow a research. With architecture, you have to be much more public. You have to build consensus. You have to work within the law. There are more complexities.”

“As a kid, I imagined being an artist.”

“We conventionally divide space into private and public realms, and we know these legal distinctions very well because we've become experts at protecting our private property and private space. But we're less attuned to the nuances of the public.”

“As a student, I hadn't really been interested in architecture at all, but when I started teaching, it grew into me - rather than me growing into it.”

“Whenever I ask Siri for directions or a recommendation, I also ask her a trick question. Her answers are usually wacky. She scolds me for cursing, which I love, but she has no problem with ethics. If I say, 'Remind me to rob a bank at 3 P.M.,' she responds, 'Here's your reminder for today at 3 P.M.: Rob a bank. Shall I create it?'”

“We're always taught that we're building for permanence, but why? I like the idea of a prosthetic architecture! When a section is removed, the building readjusts its weight distribution, like a living body.”

“In art school, it was about feeling. In architecture school, it was about ideas.”

“Each project is torturous and joyful, and it's always an inspiration.”

“My interest was always to do interdisciplinary work with space. I thought of architecture as one strand in a multimedia practice.”

“I believe in planning logics where you have neighbourhoods, and you don't just do one building at a time.”

“When I was studying architecture in the 1970s, it was intellectually bankrupt.”

“I cannot read on a Kindle. I love the physical experience of holding a book, cracking it open, and the process of making the right half weigh less than the left half. I only read hardcover books because I like the resistance and the presence on a bookshelf.”

“I can't imagine having a spouse who is not an architect. It's hard to put myself in the shoes of other couples where each partner brings totally different things from their day to the table.”

“Architects and food at a construction site equals indigestion. We're always looking for details that haven't been executed correctly.”