Magical skills originated as an attempt to make order out of chaos, as early humans attempted to ration- alize a confusing and seemingly indefinable universe. This notion, namely that to define the elusive effects of how we, as humans, inhabit the world, remains a large part of our search for meaning. This discussion argues that architecture and magic function in a similar manner. When architecture offers more than mere shelter, we recognize that it, like magic, can also participate in the search for defining and representing the cosmos. In effect, such a search may have emerged from humans’ desire to materialize the immaterial and is not unlike the initial stages of architectural design, or any creative process.

– Albert C. Smith and Kendra Schank Smith

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