Juha Leiviskä, winner of the 2008 Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for Architecture and Town planning, is widely recognised as Finland's leading architect. From the beginning of his career, his work has remained outside the mainstream of modern architecture, and it was already apparent in his competition entries in the 1960s that he was creating a characteristic language of form based on his own architectural values and experiences, and operating in a subtle interaction with the surroundings. Simo Paavilainen spoke to Juha Leiviskä at his home in Helsinki in spring 2004, and the interview appears here for the first time in translation.