Title & Author:

Proportional systems in the history of architecture : a critical reconsideration / edited by Matthew A. Cohen and Maarten Delbeke.

Publication:

Leiden : Leiden University Press, [2018]

Description:

565 pages : illustrations, charts, facsimiles, plans ; 30 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Part I. Introduction. Two kinds of proportion / Matthew A. Cohen -- part II. Thinking and seeing proportion. 2 Canons of proportion and the laws of nature : observations on a permanent and unresolved conflict / Mario Curti -- The composto ordinato of Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana : proportion or anthropomorphy? / Caroline van Eck -- Subjective proportions : 18th-century interpretations of Paestum's "disproportion" / Sigrid de Jong -- Were early modern architects Neoplatonists? The Case of François Blondel / Anthony Gerbino -- Plotting Gothic : a paradox / Stephen Murray -- To build proportions in time, or tie knots in space? A reassessment of the Renaissance turn in architectural proportions / Marvin Trachtenberg -- part III. Designing with proportion. 1, 2, 3, 6 : Early Gothic architecture and perfect numbers / Elizabeth den Hartog -- Proportion and building material or theory versus practice in the determination of the module / Lex Bosman -- Approaches to architectural proportion and the "poor old Parthenon" / Mark Wilson Jones -- Scamozzi's orders and proportions : an end to illusions or a visionary harbinger? / Franco Barbieri -- Early modern Netherlandish artists on proportion in architecture or "de questien der Simmetrien met redene der Geometrien" / Krista De Jonge -- Proportional design systems in 17th-century Holland / Konrad Ottenheym -- The matrix regained : reflections on the use of the grid in the architectural theories of Nicolaus Goldmann and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand / Jeroen Goudeau -- Dynamic unfolding and the conventions of procedure : geometric proportioning strategies in Gothic architectural design / Robert Bork -- part IV. New approaches to well-known sources. Divining proportions in the information age / Andrew Tallon -- Decoding the Pantheon columns / Gerd Grasshoff and Christian Berndt -- Leonardo da Vinci : the proportions of the drawings of sacred buildings in Ms. B, Institut de France / Francesco P. Di Teodoro -- Philibert de L'Orme's divine proportions and the composition of the Premier tome de l'architecture / Sara Galletti -- An old problem? Claude Perrault's views on beauty and proportion in architecture and French aesthetic theory / Maarten Delbeke -- part V. Twentieth-century perspectives. Le Corbusier's Modulor and the debate on proportion in France / Jean-Louis Cohen -- Between looking and making : unravelling Dom Hans van der Laan's plastic number / Caroline Voet -- Rudolph Wittkower versus Le Corbusier : a matter of proportion / Francesco Benelli -- Proportional systems in the history of architecture : a conversation with James S. Ackerman / conducted and edited by Matthew A. Cohen -- part VI. Conclusion. Ten principles for the study of proportional systems in the history of architecture / Matthew A. Cohen.

Summary:

In this collection of original essays, twenty-six leading scholars reconsider the long history of proportional systems across numerous periods and places, and from diverse methodological approaches including archival exploration, advanced laser scanning, and more. Prior to the advent of modern structural engineering, architects and builders used proportional systems to imbue their works with a general condition of order that was integral to their intertwined notions of beauty and structural stability. These mostly invisible intellectual frameworks ranged from simple grids and symbolic numbers, to sly manipulations of geometry and numbers that required privileged knowledge and arithmetical calculations to access. Since the origins of architectural history, proportional systems have served as objects of belief and modes of iconographical communication. Whether they are capable of fulfilling more tangible functions remains a matter of debate today, for this ancient and diverse belief system continues to infiltrate architectural thinking in subtle and sometimes surprising ways.

ISBN:

9789087282776 (hardcover)
908728277X (hardcover)
9789400602878 (e-pdf)
9789400602885 (e-book)
9400602871 (e-pdf)
940060288X (e-book)

Subject:

Architecture Composition, proportion, etc.
Architecture Philosophy.
Architecture History.
Architecture Composition, proportions, etc.
Architecture Histoire.
Architecture.
Architektur
Proportion

Form/genre:

History.

Added entries:

Cohen, Matthew A., 1962- editor.
Delbeke, Maarten, editor.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 304945
Call No.: BIB 250679
Status: Available