"I borrowed the line, "hole in the sky" from a peyote user and saxophone player whom I knew a long time ago in Berkeley. He used that expression to describe LSD (which, at that time, had an alleged esoteric association). So this is the HOLE IN THE SKY THEORY, which has to do with the impact of a building on people who experience it, and see that it reveals possibilities that stretch their understanding. [...] Because of its impact as an object—and I think the Petal House is usually associated with that roof—it may also be an early example of the HOLE IN THE SKY THEORY. It suggests that there are ways of seeing or understanding that are beyond the way that you thought a house, or the roof of a house, ought to be done, or understood."

— Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, October 1991.