Never ask me what will work. I said Covent Garden wouldn't work. I was here when it was a fruit and veg market. When it moved out, I said it's not going to work for the tourists, they won't go there.
I’m a complete Londoner. My family has been here for at least 200 years. My family tree shows that it took us 200 years to move from Aldgate East to Hackney - we were very slow-moving. I grew up in the west near the airport.
Tom Dixon: We’ve just moved the studio here from Notting Hill. It was just too small, and it was three times more expensive than the equivalent floorspace here. We were looking at Brick Lane, but because it’s become fashionable it’s almost more expensive further east now.
Katherine Clarke I came to London when I was 21 or 22, in '81 or '82. We’ve been working in this area for ten years, and what’s interesting is seeing the city change. When we arrived it was the end of the depression; the effect the economy has had on the city is incredibly visible in this area.
Nicholas Roope London is the most frustrating city in the world. There's a clear link between frustration and violence but I think there’s one between frustration and creativity - creativity as a way of dealing with living in a fucking stupid city where everything costs so much and nothing works.
Nipa Doshi It was still the recession. London had this feeling of being cutting edge without being fashionable, like it is now. You felt the danger. I stayed on Portobello Road. I remember walking along Portobello Road and feeling you shouldn’t walk there at night.
Matthias Megyeri My work is inspired by how people live in London. They have a huge desire for security products, and I'm not very happy with that.
Ross Lovegrove: I saw a wonderful interview with the artists Gilbert and George, who became quite wealthy through their success, and they were asked, why do you still live in London? And they said, "Because it’s a real place."
Ron Arad I came to London in ’73. I’d spent a year at art school in Tel Aviv and I needed a break. I didn’t even pack my LPs – they were very important to me. So I came to London for a break – and I’m still on my break.
Richard Seymour If you were flying over London and creative endeavour showed up as a flare, there would be this fantastic carpet of stuff going on.
Zaha Hadid London – people don't understand why I stay here. I must say I do regret not moving to New York when I loved it the most, which was in the Eighties. New York was my favourite place.
Rem Koolhaas I mean so many people live here that you don’t know live here. I interviewed Wolfgang Tillmans here last week – he lives here. And the reason so many of us live here is because it is for all of us the most anonymous condition.
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