This thesis represents an investigation into a particular determinate of architectural form, perception. By perception, I mean the act of apprehension, understanding and awareness associated with an active search for meaning. I suggest that there exists a perceptual history that affords insight into the creation of architecture. The methodology for this investigation consists of three major components. The first defines a state of perception of a given culture based on that culture's philosophic and scientific investigation. Secondly, this temporal state is given visual meaning through a culture's artistic endeavors. The final section illustrates that a perceptual continuity between knowledge and art continues to influence the built environment and reasserts one's connection to a wholeness of experience. I have applied this methodology to the rise of Western thought and expression in Hellenic Greece. At a time when building form is predominately determined by egotism, ethnocentrism, and economic factors, existential determinates become overshadowed. It is to the degree that these determinates predominate that a timeless architecture is created.