An original account of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian architecture from an acclaimed architectural historian In The Beginnings of Architecture , Sigfried Giedion examines the architecture of ancient Egypt and Sumer. These early builders expressed an attitude of immense force when they confronted their structures with open sky. Giedion argues that it was during these periods that the problem of constancy and change flared up with an intensity unknown in any other period of history, and resolved eventually into the first architectural space conception , the automatic, psychic recording of the visual environment.