Stephen Gardiner

“The ancient Greeks noticed that a man with arms and legs extended described a circle, with his navel as the center.”

“Like flats of today, terraces of houses gained a certain anonymity from identical facades following identical floor plans and heights.”

“The center of Western culture is Greece, and we have never lost our ties with the architectural concepts of that ancient civilization.”

“The Japanese put houses in among the trees and allowed nature to gain the ascendancy in any composition.”

“In cities like Athens, poor houses lined narrow and tortuous streets in spite of luxurious public buildings.”

“Stonehenge was built possibly by the Minoans. It presents one of man's first attempts to order his view of the outside world.”

“The frame of the cave leads to the frame of man.”

“Houses mean a creation, something new, a shelter freed from the idea of a cave.”

“The mystery is what prompted men to leave caves, to come out of the womb of nature.”

“The chief concern of the French Impressionists was the discovery of balance between light and dark.”

“The largest and most influential houses chiefly demonstrate the aloofness of the French approach.”

“The American order reveals a method that was largely the outcome of material necessity, as exemplified by the Colonial style and the grid.”

“Victorian architecture in the United States was copied straight from England.”

“The corridor is hardly ever found in small houses, apart from the verandah, which also serves as a corridor.”

“In the crowded and difficult conditions of a steep hillside, houses have had to struggle to establish their territory and to survive.”

“The English light is so very subtle, so very soft and misty, that the architecture responded with great delicacy of detail.”

“The exterior cannot do without the interior since it is from this, as from life, that it derives much of its inspiration and character.”

“The medieval hall house was very primitive when it became the characteristic form of dwelling of the landowner of the Middle Ages.”

“The Egyptian tomb was the outcome of the Mesopotamian influence and followed from the religious crisis the country had undergone.”

“The Egyptian contribution to architecture was more concerned with remembering the dead than the living.”