What I’m doing now is redoing the entrance to the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. And now we’re looking at it and wondering if we haven’t focused too much on the functional things and forgotten that this is the major entrance to the building. The client mentioned it, and I’m agreeing with him.

I listen to a lot of music, because I’ve been very involved with music all my life. I’m working on the sets for an opera, Michael Tilson Thomas’s production of Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman,” which is probably going to be delayed, in San Francisco.

I listen to recordings by Daniel Barenboim — we worked on the Berlin concert hall together — the L.A. Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen — all my buddies. It makes me feel closer to them, and to the music. I’m not a musician, so I can’t explain it all to you: It’s a big feeling.

I don’t use free time to look at classic architecture a lot, and I’ve wondered about that myself. Is it an ego thing? I hope it’s not. I’m an older guy, so I know that stuff pretty well — I can draw it, and used to do that.

When I was a kid, it was World War II, so I lived through all of that. I remember polio too. You can’t get yourself cornered into fear about things. But this is something out of this world that I’ve never experienced; it’s scary. And especially when you have kids and grandchildren.

I’ve been fantasizing about pulling out my old watercolors to use. At my age, the ideas are coming at me at a fast speed. I can’t even keep up with them. I guess I’m trying to get everything done before I leave the Earth.