So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.

- Thom Mayne

I've always been interested in an architecture of resistance - architecture that has some power over the way we live. Working under adversarial conditions could be seen as a plus because you're offering alternatives. Still, there are situations that make you ask the questions: 'Do I want to be a part of this?'

- Thom Mayne

I don't know any architects that I respect who don't have their own voice. I think the difference between architecture and the other arts is your immersion in reality.

- Thom Mayne

I think all good architecture should challenge you, make you start asking questions. You don't have to understand it. You may not like it. That's OK.

- Thom Mayne

I'm often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That's impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more.

- Thom Mayne

I fought violently for the autonomy of architecture. It's a very passive, weak profession where people deliver a service. You want a blue door, you get a blue door. You want it to look neo-Spanish, you get neo-Spanish. Architecture with any authenticity represents resistance. Resistance is a good thing.

- Thom Mayne

But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.

- Thom Mayne

I believe that artistic activities change people. You do effect change. I see architecture as a political, social and cultural act - that is its primary role.

- Thom Mayne

Architecture is the story of how we see ourselves. It is the architect's job to service everyday life.

- Thom Mayne

The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value.

- Thom Mayne