The one thing that is undeniably new about modern architecture is the conscious manipulation of space. We talk loosely about Baroque space and Gothic space and argue about whether the Greeks ever had any sense of space at all; but the ability even to utter the phrase ‘architectural space’ is an achievement of the late nineteenth century, and a critic’s term, or an historian’s in the first place. For an architect to think of himself as using or working in space is purely twentieth century, and one of the things that mark the modern architect over and above any considerations of formal style. But, in addition to this primary cast of mind, the space in which the modern architect consciously works is unlike the space, conscious or otherwise, of any previous architecture.

Age of the Masters: A Personal View of Modern Architecture
Reyner Banham