Michael Arad

I built a series of supporters that had my back. I never abused that trust. You can't cry wolf. You have to solve most problems yourself.

I really appreciate artists of the 20th century, and I can see a lot of their influence on my work, but to suggest that my design only fits within an 'ism' kind of bothers me.

How do you design it so that people can form a space of their own, and feel quiet and contemplative?

For two years nobody talked about anything other than the name arrangement. There was no fund-raising and no progress being made on construction and design.

When I started this project, I was a young architect. I was very apprehensive about any changes to the design. Whether I wanted to or not, I learned that you can accept some changes to its form without compromising its intent. But it's a leap of faith that I didn't want to make initially - to put it mildly.