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"[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