Essays

It is just two hundred years ago that Newton closed his eyes. We feel impelled at such a moment to remember this brilliant genius, who determined the course of Western thought, research, and practice like no one else before or since. Destiny placed him at a turning point in the history of the human intellect: Before Newton, there existed no self-contained system of physical causality that was somehow capable of representing any of the deeper features of the empiri- cal world.
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rovements in building materials, such as steel, glass, and concrete, have allowed architects to erect structures never before thought possible. The results have been mixed. Some modem buildings complement their environments while remaining aesthetic treats in themselves. Others seem to have been conceived by architects bent on erasing the distinction be- tween art and parody.
The Wihon QuarterlyIWinter 1979
120
The Swiss urban planner Le Corbusier regarded his own brand of high-rise, mass-produced...

GROUND BOO

Architects and builders have always had more in mind than mere shelter or work-and-storage space. Old and new buildings celebrate the glory of religions (the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, Chartres Cathedral); of gov- ernments (Britain's Houses of Par- liament, the Kremlin, the U.S. Capitol); of families (the Marl-boroughs' Blenheim Palace, the Rockefellers' Japanese house in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.).
Renowned designers and unknown masons have collaborated o...

ing the last decade, art sales have made headlines-the $5.54 million purchase of Velazquez's Juan de Pareja by the Met- ropolitan Museum of Art, for example. In 1970, it was the high- est price ever paid for a painting. Last June's $13.4 million sale of masterpieces from the Robert von Hirsch collection of Gothic, Romanesque, and Renaissance art was described as the largest one-day receipt in the history of art auctions. But in the late 1920s and '30s,a series of art sales of still unequalled magni-...