"The allusions to classicism, visible despite Hoffmann's conscious distortions, locks the building in an ordered and composed whole and places it in a world of lost archetypes: Roman, Flemish, Byzantine. In spite of its domestic forms the object is no longer recognizable in terms of type; located on the margins of a city largely composed of suburbs, more refined than anything most people are accustomed to, the Palais Stoclet, with its rarefied decorations and objets d'art, waits in its park for a silent crowd. Its sumptuous exterior, crowned by Metzner's sculptures, transforms it into an object with no other significance than an architectural one."

— Giuliano Gresleri. Josef Hoffmann. New York: Rizzoli, 1981. p60.