Here in Italy I have seen the dividing point between the ages. I did so when I saw, along with the sailing vessel, a motorboat on the lake, floating, streamlined, but still a machine. I saw this dividing point also when in Padua I went through the streets with their houses that were so full of vitality. In almost all of them the second story rested on pillars and the first floor was set back. The spaces were conjoined, so that on both sides of the streets we had covered walkways. Each house was built individually and yet in such a way as to create a feeling that they all belonged together. But then in the midst of them I came across a modern house of poured concrete, inorganic, schematic, abstract, and, for all its practicality, barbaric.
— Romano Guardini in Letters from Lake Como
