Alessandro Michele Quotes

In Paris, there has to be a presence. History becomes the most interesting when it's compared to the present. I mean there's a whole group of people that want to build new buildings that look like old buildings.

I found that through my life, living in the city of Toronto, I look above the Pizza Pizza sign, and I look above the other signs and window dressing, and I see evidence of a city that no longer exists in the keystones and the decorations that line the tops of buildings. That presence of the old city has always moved me.

The design of a city is like a strange archeology.

It's a melting pot, southern Africa. You find these cultural collisions that result in art and music, and it's pretty amazing.

In the '60s when I was a student, there was this campaign to destroy 75 percent of the old buildings in Paris, replacing them with modern architecture. I realized this as a dangerous utopia. This modern vision did not understand the richness of the city. Thankfully, such destruction did not happen.

Melbourne is wonderfully altered since I last saw it. There are some very fair buildings in it now, and things are a little cheaper than they used to be.

I definitely think New York is a very, very vibrant, wonderful city, but I certainly, of course, can't help but miss a lot of the stuff that's no longer there.

Paris is an old and traditional place; it needs new blood.

It makes the city unique and hold a charm. In old Kolkata, there are some beautiful old buildings... some of them are well-maintained; somewhere reflects what the city has gone through in the past.

[Urbanization] is the inevitable outcome of the processes of growth and the processes of modernization.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everything in the past is great and everything modern is terrible. But I do think cities should be a mix of old things and new things.

L.A. prides itself on newness or being the last frontier or just not liking old things and tearing them down to build new things.

I seem to respond most to places that are more cosmopolitan because of my Manhattan upbringing. Some of the major international cities I've visited, like Madrid, Rome and London, have a lot of similarities and "New York" elements while ... having their own flavor.

I am a Bengali. My mother is from Mangalore so it's a mix of both cultures at home.

I remember returning to Bangalore after a few months of travel and seeing it as a first-world city, like New York or San Francisco. This may be obvious to some people, but I grew up in Delhi, and I had no experience of how someone from a 'Tier 2' city may view a 'Tier 1' city. You really do emigrate between worlds when you come from those towns.

I have great memories of the old Times Square - wouldn't have missed being here to see that place for the world - but I can also deal with the new Times Square in the overall scheme of N.Y. City 2010.

The Indian cowboy is such a uniquely American contradiction.

I'm not more Brazilian than I am American or vice-versa - I'm very much a combination of all of those things.

As mayor I don't intend to be just a voice for Portland. I intend to be a voice for urban America.

That's the beauty of Mumbai. While some parts have grown rapidly, there are places like Churchgate that have retained their character.

Art music is an evolving matter, and so are a lot of cities.

I'm Italian, but I'm also a little Brazilian: Pirlonho, if you like.

I grew up very American but also fully Asian.

People think that buildings are permanent, but in China, this isn't true; we can always demolish and remake it better.

Look at the streets! The people have smiles on their faces, they're hustling and bustling and going places, they're well-dressed, there's lots of construction going on. It's kind of hard to feel sorry for an economy like this.