I am really persuaded that if we were to inquire of all the Cities which†have fallen by Siege into the Power of new Masters, who it was that subjected and overcame them, they would tell you, the Architect; and that they were strong enough to have despised the armed Enemy, but not to withstand the Shocks of the Engines, the Violence of the Machines and the Force of other Instruments of War with whichthe Architect, distressed, demolished and ruinated them.On the contrary, they would inform you that their greatest Defense lay in the Art and Assistance of the Architect.

-Alberti, Leon Battista
^2  Architecttura (translated by James Leoni,1755).

Car loin de le [le lecteur] ne¤  gliger, l'auteur aujourd'hui proclame l'absolu besoin qu'il a de son concours actif, conscient, cre¤  ateur. Ce qu'il lui demande, ce n'est plus de recevoir tout fait un monde acheve¤  , plein, clos sur lui- me"  me, c'est au contraire de participer a'   une cre¤  ation, d'inventer a'   son tour l'½uvreöet le mondeöet d'apprendre ainsi a'   inventer sa propre vie. Far from neglecting him [the reader], the author today proclaims the absolute necessity of the reader's active, conscious and creative assistance.What he demands of the reader is no longer to receive a ready-made world, complete, full, closed in upon itself.On the contrary, the reader isasked toparticipateinthe creation, toinvent for himself aworköand the worldöand tounderstand thus how to invent his own life.

-Robbe-Grillet, Alain
  Pour un nouveau roman.