Excerpt from The Story of Architecture: An Outline of the Styles in All Countries
Architecture, like philosophy, dates from the morning of the mind's history. Primitive man found Nature beautiful to look at, wet and uncomfortable to live in; a shelter became the first desideratum; and hence arose "the most useful of the fine arts, and the finest of the useful arts." Its history, however, does not begin until the thought of beauty had insinuated itself into the mind of the builder. All the previous unfolding of the craft belongs under the head of arch?ology.
Roughly defined, architecture is the art of ornamental construction; not ornamental in the sense of decorated, but in the harmonious distribution of mass, in the convincing beauty of proportion.
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