An architect builds in a particular geography and at a specific moment in history. It may not be our geography or our history and so, to understand the structure, we must understand the moment in which it was conceived — that particular time that is not our time or our place.
Likewise, in order to understand a place and its culture, we may look to its architecture in its particularity, as a prideful statement of the culture’s status.
Recall the great, world-wide sigh of relief when, during the mass bombings of WWII, it was announced that Paris was not burning.
Photograph copyright: Victor Barcy
Location: Neues Museum, Berlin