<blockquote>Designing plans for a city is like arranging toys, with architects playing god. The easiest thing is to place everything symmetrically, following a grid, be that made of squares or concentric circles or both. One look from above (which wasn’t so easy before airplanes or Google Earth) at Versailles or St. Peter’s Square shows how tidy these plans are. From the ground, however, the impression ordinary people—that is, everybody except architects—get is one of feeling small and insignificant. Which was exactly the effect both the absolute king of France and the infallible popes wanted to achieve. Disagreement, let alone contradiction, was not an option with this architecture. Hitler’s Nazi party rallies in Nuremberg also celebrated absolute symmetry, as did his and Albert Speer’s plans for postwar Berlin. Cities that needed centuries to grow, ending up full and messy, did not suit the plans of the dictators who wanted to exercise and express absolute power in their lifetime.</blockquote>
via <a href="http://designobserver.com/feature/a-fine-balance/38598/">A Fine Balance: Design Observer</a>.