We hated Bauhaus. It was a bad time in architecture. They just didn't have any talent. All they had were rules. Even for knives and forks they created rules. Picasso would never have accepted rules. The house is like a machine? No! The mechanical is ugly. The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it.

Quoted in "Why Oscar Niemeyer is king of curves," Tom Dyckhoff, The Times Online (London, 2007-12-12).