Cesar Pelli

The Connecticut Center for Science and Exploration will be a building that will connect the excitement of science to the surrounding streets, river and highway. These forms are ambitious and dynamic. They appear to reach out beyond their physical limits.

When I finished high school, I was 16, and in Argentina you have to choose a career right after high school. There is no such thing as a liberal arts education.

We are very proud of our design for the Transbay Transit Center. This will be a beautiful, functional and sustainable building for San Francisco.

I needed to understand the spirit of a tall building, what makes it important, what should I try to achieve in a tall building. It became a very interesting problem, something that I like very much.

I'm a bad customer for my own buildings! If I'm choosing an apartment, I choose one about five or six stories high so that I can see the people, the trees, and the world on the street. Beyond that, I lose contact with the ground!

I see my buildings as pieces of cities, and in my designs I try to make them into responsible and contributing citizens.

There may be some changes in building codes, but I don't see any stylistic departure that you'll be able to attribute to Sept. 11.

I realize that having a style would be very beneficial for my practice from a marketing standpoint, but I can't do it. I believe my responsibilities as an architect are to design the most appropriate building for the place. Each place has a distinct culture and function, which for me requires an appropriate answer.

One of America's strengths has always been its openness to the new: both new ideas and new people.

I'm particularly interested in the public role that all buildings play. I believe that we architects should try to go beyond our basic obligations to the public, and our opportunities to do so are many.

The truth is I don't really know where my own interest in tall buildings really comes from. It cannot come from my hometown because there were no tall buildings there!

I'm a very good listener, and I'm not interested in having fights simply for a question of protocol or vanity.