Sigfried Giedion (1888–1968) was an eminent critic and historian of architecture and art who had a major influence on architectural modernism. His books include Space, Time, and Architecture and Mechanization Takes Command. He taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and ETH Zurich.
"[Giedion] relates the great monuments that greet us at the outset
with the great spaces of the Aurignacian caves and with the ancient
cult of the animal treated as a sacred object. One of his most
original intuitions is that ‘the religious structure of the first
high civilizations was founded upon the discovery of the human form
and the human face’ and the appreciation of the naked
body."---Lewis Mumford, The New Yorker
"[Giedion’s] long preoccupation with what it feels like to frequent
spaces controlled by the buildings of men permits him to illuminate
data long familiar. We have stared for years at drawings of Greek
temples without realizing the meaning of the fact that they were
not buildings to go into. These windowless cells surrounded by
stone columns were the focal points of ceremonious processions, for
if the gods no longer wandered the people did, on ritual visits to
majestic images."---Hugh Kenner, National Review
"Giedion’s vision dominates the entire book: it is so absolute and
conclusive that the book emerges as a general philosophy rather
than mere architectural history."---Paul Zucker, Progressive
Architecture
"Eloquent."---John Canaday, New York Times Book Review
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