Quotes from Peter Marino

Ginza! Where I've done two Chanel towers and Louis Vuitton and Dior stores. I just feel at home there.

Not enough people enjoy working with color, which delights and inspires me.

I loathe when architects only analyze architecture in intellectual, nonvisual ways. I really love direct response, and that's very pop. I don't want to discuss abstract transparencies with a bunch of kooks.

There's a very important aspect to all my work, now more than ever, which is tying the interior design and architecture with the art.

We have a thousand hydrangea plants bordering the house, and they were all supposed to be pink, but a handful of them keep turning purple.

I like my clients. All of my clients say, "Peter. You're talented. But, your best virtue is your discretion." They really don't want to be talked about.

I collect art like other people eat pizza. I can't get enough of it. I need a constant source of inspiration.

People in Shanghai make a lot more money than the farmers in the rice paddies. The rice-paddy farmers are not buying Louis Vuitton bags, but the upwardly mobile ones in Shanghai, who are all working in Wall Street-type firms, are infinitely better-dressed than people in the West. Their women take this fashion thing seriously.

I do really modern with materials that are so luxurious that they're, like, baroque.

I'm really a fighter against modernism equaling brutalism.

It's a good marriage because each of us is what we are, allows the other one to be themselves, and appreciates each other for the right reason. You know, it's rare that you'll find two people who don't try to change the other person and let everyone be what they are.

My name is on the door, and I care very much about the design that gets put out. I'm sorry, but it has to be my way. You learn that by working for people like I. M. Pei. You think he isn't a design tyrant? Is Calvin Klein a tyrant? When it came to his dresses, he had to be.

Universal human characteristics are a good base for great art.

Anytime I see an unusual combination of colors or patterns or texture, I buy it.

If something's a high-margin product, I understand its importance to the store.

One of my first fashion clients was Calvin Klein. We did his first freestanding stores. He was very exact and precise. But talk about high-fashion people who brand themselves!

Nine out of nine architects start with a sketch, and then they say, 'What should we make it out of?' I start from the bottom up - what should it be made out of - and then I worry about what should it look like. The material, the color of the material, the way it feels, and the way you respond to it is every bit as valid as the form or the shape.

What frustrates me is florists who put everything at the same size on the table. I like it when there's mountains and valleys.

I got into architecture via fine arts, and I was a sculptor myself, and I have always involved artists in my projects. When I say 'involved,' I mean I always bring artists in at the beginning projects before they're built and say, 'Will you do a room? Will you do a sculpture floating in mid-air? Will you make a chimney? Will you do something?'

My father's house was on East 55th Street on 1st and 2nd Avenues. I'm fifth-generation Marino in the East 50s - I live on 57th Street. I can't be more East 50s.

Koishikawa Korakuen Garden - one of Tokyo's oldest Japanese gardens, and one of the best spots for viewing the cherry blossoms.