For architects and for architectural historians, critical lessons reside in the tangible. In examining the transition from the Roman basilica to the domed Byzantine cathedral, we literally see and can trace the intellectual, political, and philosophical transitions of empire; a telling detail, like Proust’s taste of a petite Madeleine soaked in tea, can unlock a world of memory.

Pasadena, California, encompasses such a tectonic shift, visible not in the seismic record, but in two buildings. Each represents a distinctive moment in architectural history, summing up the motives of generations of designers, thinkers, and makers. Each lies within blocks of the other. Each asserts a radically opposed worldview, poised on opposite shoals of World War I—asserting an identity visibly, even tangibly, in its personal fabric and structure. A consideration of the two offers an essay on the quintessential differences between genius and craft, prompting us to consider them together.