You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see.

Japanese traditional architecture is created based on these conditions. This is the reason you have a very high degree of connection between the outside and inside in architecture.

But now, more and more, its society is concerned with economy and finance.

The level of detail and craft is something that's inscribed within the original design concept. And so when I begin to draw, I know what kind of detailing I want the building to have.

When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.

You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see.

But in Japan, there's nothing like that, since the temple is made of wood. The divine spirit inside the building is eternal, so the enclosure doesn't have to be.

People tend not to use this word beauty because it's not intellectual - but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect.

I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.

I don't look so closely at women's fashion, but from the 20th century on, people have had the freedom to express themselves and their individualities, and fashion is one of the most fundamental ways in which they do this, men and women are equally able to express themselves.

Without this spirit, Modernist architecture cannot fully exist. Since there is often a mismatch between the logic and the spirit of Modernism, I use architecture to reconcile the two.

The speed of change makes you wonder what will become of architecture.

I would like my architecture to inspire people to use their own resources, to move into the future.

When I draw something, the brain and the hands work together.

I hope America can also be the cultural leader of the world, and use this frontier spirit to lead and show others that we need courage to go places where we have not gone before.

When you look at Japanese traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature - this very unique to Japan.

You always want to try to make something new, and, of course, America is the world leader in economics today.

At the same time, I would add that the American people have a lot of courage.

You can't really say what is beautiful about a place, but the image of the place will remain vividly with you.

In the West there has always been the attempt to try make the religious building, whether it's a Medieval or Renaissance church, an eternal object for the celebration of God. The material chosen, such as stone, brick, or concrete, is meant to eternally preserve what is inside.

The computer offers another kind of creativity. You cannot ignore the creativity that computer technology can bring. But you need to be able to move between those two different worlds.

I hope that America as a whole, and especially its architects, will become more seriously involved in producing a new architectural culture that would bring the nation to the apex - where it has stood before - and lead the world.

My hand is the extension of the thinking process - the creative process.

There is a role and function for beauty in our time.

If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness.

I think of the past and the future as well as the present to determine where I am, and I move on while thinking of these things.

If there is only one culture all over the world, that's not a good thing.

In Japan, there is less a culture of preserving old buildings than in Europe.

Working in Tokyo has convinced me that, contrary to what people think, it is actually one of the world's most beautiful cities.

There are self-made millionaires - their aspiration is first to make money. But the once that goal is achieved, they have to look for something and sometimes they become patrons of art or museums. And that is how the world should go.

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys.

My mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid.

Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.

Contention is inseparable from creating knowledge. It is not contention we should try to avoid, but discourses that attempt to suppress contention.

Harvard is first and foremost a university and not a consulting operation, and our job here is to teach and to research and to create knowledge on Asia in conjunction and in cooperation with scholars as well as with political, intellectual, and cultural leaders in Asia.

It was very interesting for me because DNA made music without much technical knowledge at all.

But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.

We must develop knowledge optimization initiatives to leverage our key learnings.

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance.

Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man.

We don't focus as much in schools on educational knowledge which requires thinking and application, as we do on acquiring facts.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.

The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government.

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

Effective use of Braille is as important to the blind as independent mobility, knowledge in the use of adaptive technology, and the core belief that equality, opportunity and security are truly possible for all people who are blind.

I feel, sometimes, as the renaissance man must have felt in finding new riches at every point and in the certainty that unexplored areas of knowledge and experience await at every turn.