I want my buildings to take root and look as if they've always been there. It isn't about pastiche or adapting what's already there. It's about trying to blend the future and the past.

I try firstly to make buildings humane.

I don't think I have a signature style that announces, 'This is a Safdie.' But I think star architects have seized an opportunity to go anywhere in the world to produce meaningless buildings.

Performing arts buildings are complex. The acoustics, the sight lines and all that have to just be perfect. So you begin with just making these things sublime as musical instruments. And if you fail there, you have failed it all.

I think you need to, as an architect, understand the essence of a place and create a building that feels like it resonates with the culture of a place. So my buildings in India or in Kansas City or in Arkansas or in Singapore, they come out different because the places are so different.

The future does not look at the past, it always looks at the future.