In many lands and centuries--in ages where civilization has been tinged by an under-current of barbarism--one or both of these conditions have been absent.

In Asia during much of its history, in early Greece, in Europe during the first half of the Middle Ages, towns have consisted of one or two dominant buildings, temple or church or castle, of one or two processional avenues for worshippers at sacred festivals, and a little adjacent chaos of tortuous lanes and squalid houses.

Architects have devised beautiful buildings in such towns.

But they have not touched the chaos or treated the whole inhabited area as one unit.
Town-planning has been here unknown.[2] [2] Compare Brinckmann's remarks on mediaeval towns: 'Der Nachdruck liegt auf den einzelnen Gebaeuden, der Kathedrale, dem Palazzo publico, den festen Palaesten des Adels, nicht auf ibrer einheitlichen Verbindung.

Ebenso erscheint die ganze Stadt nur eine Ansammlung einzelner Bauten.