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"I feel truly liberated at work. Since I was very young, I was dreaming this is what I want to do: to build and be an architect and design.
Only free people have the privilege of doing what they like to do. If they have to do things they don't like, in my opinion, they are slaves.
Which projects have moved me the most? The first one goes back almost 50 years ago, to 1958, when I finally succeeded in saving enough money to build on the east end of Montreal, on the outskirts, four duplexes.
On a very early, very frosty, dark fall morning, when the shovel took out the first bit of black earth, I had a feeling of reverence. That something I designed — there will be happiness and children and people living in the house that I am going to create.
The greatest challenge was to start. Because I had to do it on my own. I had no money. I had to save the money and get into it.
I thrive on challenges. From one project to another, there is a new challenge. Each one, even if it is small, has to be treated the same way.
I always wanted to do something in Israel, to share my experience and contribute to my own people. I was extraordinarily happy when I won the competition to do the largest project in the Mediterranean basin, [the Azrieli Center].
The house in Israel is under construction, but Montreal is my home. I also have a place up north. I also have a condo in Florida. So it is not a question of having a place somewhere, therefore you belong to that place.
People who don't agree with me may think that [I am autocratic]. I am very fortunate the majority do agree with me, or at least they understand what I am trying to do, and they don't think that way.
I am very much concerned with details, both in design and with the business. If I come across something that should be done a different way, I have the will to impose that and change it. I don't want to say I have the will and the power, but I do.
I believe that successful people should give back to the community. When I say give back to the community, it is not only money, it is also time. Involvement. To give it with your heart, and to give it in such a way that one believes it is going to make a difference.
I am a partial Holocaust survivor; I was never in the camps. I managed to go through the war without falling into the hands of the Nazis.
It has never had any negative influence on my optimism, my love of life. I get up in the morning and I see only beautiful things around me.
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