What makes an architect tick? What is the state of architecture today? How do architects view each other's work? No one can answer these questions better than the practitioners themselves. Here such distinguished figures as Cecil Balmond, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Philip Johnson, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, I. M. Pei, and others offer a wide-ranging assortment of perspectives on contemporary architecture and the architects' roles in shaping the state of the art today. Each interview focuses on the unique contributions of its subject, and is accompanied by images of their most important works. With a no-holds-barred approach the author obtains interesting details about their ideas on architecture in general, from where they get their inspiration, to what formative experiences led them to become architects in the first place. Informative, accessible, and endlessly fascinating, this collection offers a chance to compare, contrast, and get to know the architects that are shaping the world we live in.