Adam Khan: ‘I would introduce anarchy in the UK’

What got you started?
Teenage train rides to Charing Cross spent daydreaming of wholesale demolition of south-east London.

Who was your most inspiring tutor?
Florian Beigel is very special.

Which architect have you learnt the most from?
Adam Caruso and Peter St John. Always surprising, inspiring and full of integrity.

Which living architect do you most admire?
Peter Märkli and Lacaton & Vassal.

What is your Achilles’ heel?
Always questioning – it scares people.

Which house would you most like to live in?
Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro in São Paulo.

You can work in any city at any point in history — where and when would you choose?
Here and now.

What would be your dream commission?
I just got it: decent social housing in Ellebo, Copenhagen. And a Gallery of Evolution — like the Eames shows, which got complex ideas across to anyone.

What one piece of legislation would you introduce?
Anarchy in the UK. That would include thoughtful alternatives to wasteful demolition.

What is your favourite architectural book?
London the Unique City by Steen Eiler Rasmussen. It connects the vast urban scale with intimate daily life.

What is your favourite novel?
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, which is about this incredible beauty and the excitement of having a mind and a body.

What are you listening to?
Bach’s preludes & fugues as always. Maria João Pires playing the English Suites is the stuff of being alive. Mozart operas are full of irony, wit, compassion and beauty.

Complete the sentence: At heart I am a frustrated…
Baroque countertenor.

What have you sacrificed for your career?
Playing the piano all morning.

Your child tells you they want to be an architect.What do you tell them?
Get making, drawing, building…

Is it getting easier?
Thankfully not.