Criticism Per Se Does Not Worry Me.

That Has Been My Entire Life Story. Running Against The Current And Running With The Current. Sometimes Running With The Current Is Underestimated. The Acceptance Of Certain Realities Doesn’t Preclude Idealism. It Can Lead To Certain Breakthroughs.

The Grid Makes The History Of Architecture And All Previous Lessons Of Urbanism Irrelevant. It Forces Manhattan's Builders To Develop A New System Of Formal Values, To Invent Strategies For The Distinction Of One Block From Another. The Grid's Two-dimensional Discipline Also Creates Undreamt-of Freedom For Three-dimensional Anarchy. The Grid Defines A New Balance Between Control And De-control In Which The City Can Be At The Same Time Ordered And Fluid, A Metropolis Of Rigid Chaos.

It Was A Book [george Packer Written On Our Presence In Nigeria] That Was Killed By The Response Of Other People. Which Sounds Quite Cowardly, Perhaps, But It Was The First Manifestation Of What Is Currently A Really Big Issue: How Political Correctness Defines The Limits Of What You Can Do. In That Sense, It Was Super-exciting And Maybe The Most Magical Project We Did, But At The Same Time Fraught With Mixed Feelings.

Nigeria Was A Blank On The Map - There Weren't Even Any Maps. The Us State Department, Everyone Said Don't Go There. It Was Courageous Of Harvard University: The Notion Was That We Would Match Harvard Students With Nigerian Students, So That Every Student Would Have A Guide, Creating A Guarantee Of Intimacy With The City.

Evil Can Also Be Beautiful. The Coliseum In Rome, For Example, A Wonderful Structure With An Awful Past. Just Think About The Bloody Gladiator Fights There.