A Wired interview from 2001.
When I was in architecture school, I became curious about the exact mathematics, physics, and construction of the great structures I had been studying. I wanted to know how these amazing things would work: the Pantheon, the dome of Michelangelo, the dome of Brunelleschi. So I decided to study civil engineering. You could say that I had become possessed, in the classical sense, by the art of the great architects of the past. And that led me to engineering.