We can appreciate but not really understand the medieval town. We cannot comprehend its compactness, the contiguity of all its buildings as a single uninterrupted whole.

In those countries with centuries of a craft tradition behind their building methods, techniques are tightly coordinated under the direction of the architect.

Our incapacity to comprehend other cultures stems from our insistence on measuring things in our own terms.

I plead for conservation of human culture, which is much more fragile than nature herself. We needn't destroy other cultures with the force of our own.

Nowhere has specialization penetrated so deeply into the building professions as North America.

Does an architecture to assuage the spirit have a place in all this? Unfortunately we are no longer the interpreters of our culture's myths but the followers of that dubious client, the developer, who has little patience with the art of architecture, the fine detail and obscure promise, which can upset his financial activity.

We have today a fairly thorough knowledge of the early Greco-Roman period because our motivations are the same.