Clarence Stein Quotes

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The Oriental heritage, due to the long sojourn of the Moors in Spain, had a profound influence on the taste of the people. From these Oriental invaders the Spaniards derived the great surfaces of blank wall with occasional spots of luxuriant ornament that characterize nearly all their work. From them also comes the love of bright color shown in the use of polychrome tiles and rich fabrics and in the painting and gilding of sculpture and ornamental motives. While the large constructive forms, particularly vaults and domes, are frankly and simply expressed, the ornament as in the work of the Orient, is rather an incrustation, a mere surface decoration, than a pretense at logical construction.

Clarence Stein
Depraved these styles are called, the one with its ever broken and twisted mouldings, the other with its rich crowded carving, and depraved we may count them, if we are of the school that thinks the purpose of architectural ornament is always to state some fact of construction. The Mexican architects and their workmen were certainly not of this school. They broke their mouldings, turned and curved them and multiplied their ornament for the pure joy it gave them to see the sparkle of the sunlight on their white walls.

Clarence Stein
A truly great architecture grew up in Mexico after the time of the Conquest of Cortez. It was probably not on account of any lack desire on the part of the early Fathers that architecture was not transplanted to California in the days of the Missions. It is apparent their simple crude touches of ornament, that Padres were trying to simulate the richness of the churches of Mexico City and Puebla—they were pitifully limited, however, not only in wealth but also in the skill of the workmen had at hand.

Clarence Stein
On the one hand, the great focal points and the main arteries of traffic speak of the dignity of government and the easy movement of commerce. But we need also the more intimate side of city planning, the by ways with their little shops, the occasional drinking fountain at a street corner, the glimpse of some secluded garden through a half-open gate.

Clarence Stein
A city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness

Clarence Stein