In Britain, we've tended to replace the kind of architectural culture valued in much of Europe with an in-flight magazine lifestyle - all branding, marketing and 'accessibility', a word that usually means dumbing-down.

I like to be surrounded by books. My wife Evelyn has a Ph.D. in comparative literature, so we have a lot of her Spanish and German literature books which are wasted on me, plus a lot of novels and books on art and architecture shared by us both. Evelyn used to edit an art magazine called 'FMR,' so we have a common interest in design.

Most architects work in studios largely divorced from academia, as if ideas, criticism and historical research were irrelevant.

David Chipperfield Quotes