Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



will be annihilated. The private dwelling places, 

 no longer costly and labyrinthine in proportion 

 to the value and number of the treasures they 

 contain, will need no longer to have doors and 

 windows jealously closed against fellow men or 

 mother nature. The sun and air will have access 

 to them, the indwellers will have unfettered egress. 

 Neither man nor woman will be tied in slavery to 

 the lodge which they inhabit ; and in becoming 

 once more a part of nature, the human habitation 

 will at length cease to be what it is now for at 

 least half the human race — a prison. 



Men often ask about the new Architecture — 

 what, and of what sort, it is going to be. But 

 to such a question there can be no answer till a 

 new understanding of life has entered into people's 

 minds, and then the answer will be clear enough. 

 For as the Greek Temples and the Gothic Cathedrals 

 were built by people who themselves lived but 

 frugally as we should think, and were ready to 

 dedicate their best work and chief treasure to the 

 gods and the common life ; and as to-day when 

 we must needs have for ourselves spacious and 

 luxurious villas, we seem to be unable to design 

 a decent church or public building ; so it will 

 not be till we once more find our main interest and 

 life in the life of the community and the gods that 

 a new spirit will inspire our architecture. Then 

 when our Temples and Common Halls are not 

 designed to glorify an individual architect or patron, 

 but are built for the use of free men and women, 

 to front the sky and the sea and the sun, to spring 



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