Reading the Current Book In Progress - Le Corbusier's "The City of To-morrow and its planning"
Le Corbusier was the French architect who more or less created modern architecture and dragged the world kicking and screaming into the urban present. Passages like this demonstrate why:
MAN walks in a straight line because he has a goal and knows where he is going ; he has made up his mind to reach some particular place and he goes straight to it.
The pack-donkey meanders along, meditates a little in his scatter-brained and distracted fashion, he zigzags in order to avoid the larger stones, or to ease the climb, or to gain a little shade ; he takes the line of least resistance.
But man governs his feelings by his reason ; he keeps his feelings and his instincts in check, subordinating them to the aim he has in view. He rules the brute creation by his intelligence. His intelligence formulates laws which are the product of experience. His experience is born of work; man works in order that he may not perish. In order that production may be possible, a line of conduct is essential, the laws of experience must be obeyed. Man must consider the result in advance.
But the pack-donkey thinks of nothing at all, except what will save himself trouble.
The Pack-Donkey’s Way is responsible for the plan of every continental city ; including Paris, unfortunately.
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Dennis