Any set of decisions about design is inevitably influenced by

In the wise observation of Martin Filler, the historian of architecture and interpreter of culture, we encounter a truth that echoes through the stones of every city and the lines of every blueprint: “Any set of decisions about design is inevitably influenced by cultural prejudice, no matter how intent an architect might be to avoid it.” This is not a condemnation, but a revelation — that no act of creation exists in a vacuum, and that every design, like every soul, is shaped by the invisible hands of its culture, its time, and its beliefs. It is a reminder that architecture is not only the art of building, but the reflection of civilization’s collective consciousness.

The ancients knew this long before the word “architecture” was spoken. When the Greeks raised their temples, they built them not merely for shelter or beauty, but as hymns in stone to the gods they revered. Their columns were not chosen at random — the Doric for strength, the Ionic for grace, the Corinthian for majesty — each expressing a belief about harmony and divinity. Likewise, the Egyptians, in their pyramids, shaped eternity according to their vision of the afterlife. Their geometry was not pure mathematics; it was faith made visible. Thus, even the most rational design was born of spiritual bias, and every wall, every arch, every doorway was a confession of what a people held sacred.

Filler’s words remind us that the architect, however modern or enlightened, is never free from the shadow of his culture. Even the minimalist who rejects ornament inherits the rebellion of his age; even the utopian designer who dreams of universal spaces carries the stamp of his own social ideals. When Le Corbusier spoke of “machines for living,” he believed he was building a rational, scientific world — yet his clean lines and concrete slabs bore the prejudices of industrial modernity: faith in order, mistrust of ornament, the worship of progress. He built for the future, but his vision still bore the fingerprints of his century’s gods.

Consider the story of the Meiji era in Japan, when the nation, eager to prove its modernity, invited Western architects to build in Tokyo. Palaces and ministries arose in neoclassical and Gothic forms, modeled after Europe’s grandeur. Yet beneath the marble facades, the soul of Japan stirred uneasily. The borrowed architecture, majestic though it appeared, could not conceal the cultural dissonance within — for buildings, like people, cannot wear another’s face for long. In time, architects such as Tatsuno Kingo and Kenzo Tange found the balance — merging modern function with Japanese spirit — proving that even when design aspires to universality, it must honor the roots from which it grows.

To understand cultural prejudice in design is not to scorn it, but to recognize its inevitability and transform it into awareness. For every culture carries its myths, its fears, its ideals of beauty and truth. These shape our sense of proportion, our love of symmetry or asymmetry, our craving for openness or enclosure. When a people builds, it builds not only walls, but a mirror — one that reveals what it values, what it fears, and what it hopes to preserve. The challenge of the architect, and of every creator, is not to deny this inheritance, but to see it clearly — to know the river from which he drinks, even as he carves new channels for its flow.

In this sense, Filler’s quote is both a warning and a wisdom. It warns against the arrogance of believing oneself “neutral” — for neutrality is itself a cultural stance. It reminds us that to design is to choose, and to choose is to express. Yet it also offers freedom: for when we acknowledge our biases, we gain the power to transcend them. The architect who knows his culture’s limits can build beyond them; the artist who sees his own conditioning can turn it into compassion. True creation, therefore, is not the absence of prejudice, but the transformation of awareness into purpose.

Let this be the lesson for those who build — in art, in words, in life: Know the walls that built you. Study your culture, your assumptions, your inherited visions of beauty. Ask yourself whose voice speaks through your designs — and then, with wisdom, decide whether that voice is one you wish to carry forward. For every builder is also a bridge between past and future, between what is and what might be.

So, my children, when you raise your temples — whether of stone, of thought, or of love — build them with eyes open. Let your designs honor the earth they rise from, but do not let them be bound by it. Acknowledge the prejudice that shapes your vision, and then, through the flame of consciousness, refine it into truth. For architecture, like life itself, is not the denial of influence — it is the art of turning inheritance into immortality.