A Quote by Iain McGilchrist

The imperial vastness of late Roman architecture was made possible by the invention of concrete.

Iain McGilchrist

Quote Topics

Architecture Concrete Imperial Invention Late Made Possible Roman Vastness

Quote Author

Iain McGilchrist
British - Writer

When Edward Gibbon was writing about the fall of the Roman Empire in the late 18th century, he could argue that transportation hadn't changed since ancient times. An imperial messenger on the Roman roads could get from Rome to London even faster in A.D. 100 than in 1750. But by 1850, and even more obviously today, all of that has changed.

Walter Russell Mead

French architecture always manages to combine the most magnificent underlying themes of architecture; like Roman design, it looks to the community.

Stephen Gardiner

I see architecture not as Gropius did, as a moral venture, as truth, but as invention, in the same way that poetry or music or painting is invention.

Michael Graves

We have a duty towards music; namely to invent it. ...Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. For the act of invention implies the necessity of a lucky find and of achieving realization of this find. What we imagine does not necessarily take on concrete form and may remain in a state of virtuality; whereas invention is not conceivable apart from its actually being worked out.

Igor Stravinsky

The content could be done anyplace, but the real invention is the architecture. The architecture is the only work that really defines a new way of doing things. I think this point is fundamental.

Miuccia Prada

Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad , the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality.

Simone Weil

I think there's no question that historians create; they would tell you that, I think. If I'm trying to imagine an imperial Roman position, it's much easier to imagine the poor schlub who's not even sure why he's doing what he's doing than it is to imagine Caesar. At least for me. And I'm intrigued, too, by the position of the poor schlub who *still* finds himself supporting the imperial project.

Jim Shepard

I do not rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the device in my mind. When I have gone so far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain.

Nikola Tesla

Architecture is invention.

Oscar Niemeyer

The Roman Empire was fairly tolerant of religious choice as long as you made a point not of thumbing your nose in public at the Roman gods.

Susan Jacoby

If you want a symbol of Roman power and strength look no further than the Praetorian or Imperial Guard. We could take this one step further. It was this world of Roman power into which Christ came, in which the Apostles ministered, in which the New Testament authors wrote, and in which Christianity came into being. And to all of those things, Rome stood opposed, violently opposed.

Stephen Nichols

Architecture has its place in the concrete world. This is where it exists. This is where it makes its statement.

Peter Zumthor

I was born and spent my first five years in Chester, an ancient city that retains some of its Roman walls and fortifications and contains a great medieval cathedral, as well as Tudor, Stuart and early 19th century architecture. Visiting these things was free, and my parents - who had little money - made the most of this.

Linda Colley

God is not in the vastness of greatness. He is hid in the vastness of smallness . He is not in the general. He is in the particular.

Pearl S. Buck

Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens' attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II's of England via the Armada, Germany's twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan's bid for an empire of Asia; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally 4) folly or perversity.