I wake up at 6.28 in order to have time to rest a little until 6.50. At 6.50 I wake the kids up. These twenty minutes are my daily “vacuum”, my leisure and relaxation. We start out for school at 7.20 and by 7.45 I’m already at the office.
It’s a difficult question. For 10 or 15 years, I used to always listen to music while I worked. Now I can’t listen to music anymore, it distracts me. This is the phase I’m in at the moment. But to answer your question, I used to listen to all kinds of music.
I read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga this summer. I liked it.
I love travelling without having any responsibilities. Anywhere. It’s not the destination that matters to me; just to be able to travel without a specific purpose. Due to my work, I spend one or two days a week out of the country, so perhaps that’s why travelling in a carefree way appeals to me more than the actual place. Once or twice a year, the two of us manage to go on a trip somewhere and relax.
I have never cooked in my whole life. That’s my wife’s territory and she doesn’t even let me near it. She cooks every night. I don’t even like the ingredients, I don’t really understand how the whole thing works - even the preparations are a mystery to me. I like restaurants and bars, and I still get a thrill out of leaning on the counter with both elbows.
I read the news in all the Hungarian dailies and a few of the German and English papers that I find interesting. I’m addicted to Index (a popular Hungarian online news site), it’s really like a disease. But I still prefer the printed press. I like newspapers, their smell and weight. I don’t like the Internet. There are some pretty sites, but they simply can’t compare to printed papers.
We get nearly all the major international architectural and design magazines at the office, including international magazines published by various chambers, Details, Japanese Architect, Domus, Architect, Wettbewerbe Aktuell, A+U, Frame, Elephant, etc. And I buy the ones we don’t subscribe to.
I don’t think I can really answer that. Once I decided to get several sets of the same items of clothing. But I didn’t do it. Perhaps I’m not brave enough or too vain for that.
I have tried so many things that I don’t think there is anything I wouldn’t wear.
Five or six years ago, I designed a log house in the Bükk mountains for a Buddhist community. My plan was to go with the eventual residents and plant the trees, and that once they would be big enough, we would cut them down and build the house, using manual labour only.
For thirty years, work would only consist of going out to the woods and admiring the trees. I hope they contact me soon, so I can get it done in my lifetime.
Reading Milarepa has been a major experience. Perhaps he would invite me for a cup of nettle tea in his cave...
Hesse, Buddha, Jesus.
There are two kinds of answers to that: things that have worked for me, and things that haven’t. I’d recommend patience. I encounter impatience everywhere I go.