ABSTRACT

Giedion introduced us to the concept of space as an important element of architecture and presented us with a coherent narrative and a thoroughly convincing argument to explain the almost revolutionary architecture that was happening all around us. Giedion proposed a three-stage progressive development of space conception. He located the first stage in Egypt and Greece as characterized by "abstraction, the supremacy of the vertical, the plane surface, volume in space". The second stage of the development of space conception, according to Giedion, is attributed to the Roman period: Interior space, and with it the whole vaulting problem, became the highest aim of architecture. Giedion proposed that the key elements of both the first and the second stages of space conception are contained in the third stage. The coagulation of space into a mass, to which the Aristotelian category of continuous quantity refers, has been elevated to a sublime spiritual experience merging the spirit of the Pharaoh with eternity.