ABSTRACT
Introduction There is a phrase from Winston Churchill that was applied within a political or sociological context on how we end up being inžuenced by our own creations: “We shape our houses, and later they shape us.” I use this phrase in relation to organisms such as bacteria, archea, algae, plants, and fungi that possess cell walls. The presence of this cell wall structure creates the apparent vicious circle between the morphology of these cells and the shape of their walls. Which is due to which? I think that it is important to break the circle, and clearly state that these cells owe their shape to the cell wall, but that the architecture of the wall is the product of the vectorial mechanisms of wall assembly imposed by the cell. Of course shape is not the only important function of the cell wall, rigidity is another one. Without cell walls, sequoias would be no more than shapeless masses of cytoplasm, the same as a vertebrate that has lost its skeleton.
