“And so the answer about architecture is again, what is the responsibility if we play with material, with light, with resources, as a surrounding, as a background, for us as human beings? ...So if you can play the role by defining the material around the immaterial, this is a wonderful task to define. You are the one who can define for years, maybe thirty, maybe one hundred, maybe five also, the definition, you can define the space around you that you can feel comfortable, maybe happy.”

“We have to define this place as open, transparent. It has to be linking inside and outside. It has to have an image because you have to, you don't have to doubt about it if you see it that what it is. We never doubt when we see a church, a town hall, a good one, if this is an important building. So, it has to give this importance immediately. But also, the strength of eternity. It's not easy. Some call it monumentality, but what is it, monumentality? What I like is normal all day monumentality, with something which is different from the normal one.”

“For me sketch and remembrance—and so this is a kind of encyclopedia then, I can read from others what they thought about it and what history really was—this is leading me all my life, and doing these ideas for the library, in this case came up at the moment that you don't expect it. This is also a message for us all, if you are under the shower maybe you have the idea that you think, “Oh wow, everything’s coming to that point where I have the puzzle maybe solved,” and that moment you have to make the note.”

“If you visit Holland today, most people go to Amsterdam but meanwhile to Rotterdam also, because here was the chance to rebuild that city, a bombed city. We do it in a way that it gives a sense of future, not only in the silhouette of large buildings but also on metamorphism of the whole scenery of today. Young people are coming from everywhere, giving sense to the new society. In science, in the arts, in literature and so on. So what we see here are these different levels and then I studied a lot, reading a lot, in those years about feasibility.”