www.nexusjournal.com/reviews...son.html
Lionel March. Architectonics of Humanism: Essays on Number in Architecture (New York: John Wiley,1998). To order this book, click here!
Reviewed by Mark Peterson
Rudolf Wittkower's Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, published in 1949, marks the beginning of the modern attempt to understand Renaissance architecture in its own terms. As Wittkower so effectively points out, those terms are not our terms. To understand them now requires a conscious act of the imagination. Among his most striking observations is this: spatial proportions occurring ubiquitously in architectural designs, such as 3:2, or 4:3, would have been understood then as "musical intervals", and could even be called diapente or diatessaron (the names for the musical fifth and fourth, respectively) without any misunderstanding or incongruity. Familiar as this idea may be now, having stood the test of the intervening fifty years, it is still not entirely clear what it means. Wittkower was careful to say that it does NOT mean that such designs were simply translations of music into architecture. Rather, both musical and architectural theory in this period seem to rest on a Pythagorean faith in the importance of number: music demonstrates the importance of number in the most immediate way, but informed architecture can do so as well. As Palladio said, The proportions of the voices are harmonies for the ears; those of the measurements are harmonies for the eyes. Such harmonies usually please very much, without anyone knowing why, excepting the student of the causality of things. [1]
more...
Lionel March. Architectonics of Humanism: Essays on Number in Architecture (New York: John Wiley,1998). To order this book, click here!
Reviewed by Mark Peterson
Rudolf Wittkower's Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, published in 1949, marks the beginning of the modern attempt to understand Renaissance architecture in its own terms. As Wittkower so effectively points out, those terms are not our terms. To understand them now requires a conscious act of the imagination. Among his most striking observations is this: spatial proportions occurring ubiquitously in architectural designs, such as 3:2, or 4:3, would have been understood then as "musical intervals", and could even be called diapente or diatessaron (the names for the musical fifth and fourth, respectively) without any misunderstanding or incongruity. Familiar as this idea may be now, having stood the test of the intervening fifty years, it is still not entirely clear what it means. Wittkower was careful to say that it does NOT mean that such designs were simply translations of music into architecture. Rather, both musical and architectural theory in this period seem to rest on a Pythagorean faith in the importance of number: music demonstrates the importance of number in the most immediate way, but informed architecture can do so as well. As Palladio said, The proportions of the voices are harmonies for the ears; those of the measurements are harmonies for the eyes. Such harmonies usually please very much, without anyone knowing why, excepting the student of the causality of things. [1]
more...
posted by:
|
Oregon
|
-
Re: Architectonics
Fri, December 9, 2005 - 8:18 AMAh," the student of the causality of things", there's a ubiquitous title.Apparently many of todays architects have lost the thread about beauty, harmony etc. "Music of the Spheres" is a bowling alley ! Palladio and his contemporaries had a handle on FORM and RELATIONSHIP that todays neophytes would do well to study. The consciousness shifting qualities of many Rennassaince structures are palpable and in my humble estimation border on Shamanic Art. One need only enter a "contemporary" building based on deconstructionism and perceive the pervasive succotash that distracts,confuses,and presents so many conceptual red herrings, one is left wondering if there IS a thread... A note;I have a set of Sacred Geometry Callipers.Anyone know or have seen this device before? picture at my site. Stephen Fitz-Gerald thank you Iona
