ABSTRACT
The idea that control is the common denominator of all artifacts may sound unfamiliar and perhaps even a bit repulsive to some, but there are good reasons to advance it. It is perhaps our deep, instinctive drive to link control to all recognition of things, instead of motivations like greed and sensuousness, that makes the sage renounce all attachment to them. Withdrawal need not be a refusal of the order and beauty of all existence, nor a denial of care for artifacts, but is a response to the bondage of control. The Middle Eastern traditional urban fabric is an example of environmental form produced by control at the lowest possible level of the social hierarchy. The hierarchic structure of the man-made world is therefore a reflection of control patterns. A level in the form hierarchy offers a domain for action within the stable context of the higher-level form.
