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Proportion (architecture)
Proportion is the relation between elements and a whole.
Proportion is a correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole to a certain part selected as standard. From this result the principles of symmetry. Without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in the design of any temple; that is, if [1] there is no precise relation between its members as in the case of those of a well shaped man. Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture (III, Ch. 1)
Architectural proportions
In architecture the whole is not just a building but the set and setting of the site. The things that make a building and its site "well shaped" include the orientation of the site and the buildings on it to the features of the grounds on which it is situated. Light, shade, wind, elevation, choice of materials, all should relate to a standard and say what is it that makes it what it is, and what is it that makes it not something else. Vitruvius thought of proportion in terms of unit fractions[2] such as those used in the Greek Orders of Architecture.[3]
A Fibonacci spiral, created by drawing arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares in the Fibonacci tiling shown above see golden spiral
A tiling with squares whose sides are successive Fibonacci numbers in length
Proportion (architecture)
Scribes had been using unit fractions for their calculations at least since the time of the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll and Rhind Mathematical Papyrus[4] in Egypt and the Epic of Gilgamesh[5] in Mesopotamia. One example of symmetry might be found in the inscription grids[6] of the Egyptians which were based on parts of the body and their symmetrical relation to each other, fingers, palms, hands, feet, cubits, etc.; Multiples of body proportions would be found in the arrangements of fields and in the buildings people lived in.[7] A cubit could be divided into fingers, palms, hands and so could a foot, or a multiple of a foot. Special units related to feet as the hypotenuse of a 3/4/5 triangle with one side a foot were named remen and introduced into the proportional system very early on. Curves were also defined in a similar manner and used by architects in their design of arches and other building elements. These proportional elements were used by the Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans, in laying out cities, stadiums, roads, processional ways, public buildings, ports, various areas for crops and grazing beasts of burden, so as to arrange the city as well as the building to be well proportioned,[8][9]
Orders of Architecture
Architectural practice has often used proportional systems to generate or constrain the forms considered suitable for inclusion in a building. In almost every building tradition there is a system of mathematical relations which governs the relationships between aspects of the design. These systems of proportion are often quite simple; whole number ratios or incommensurable ratios (such as the vesica piscis or the golden ratio)which were determined using geometrical methods. Generally the goal of a proportional system is to produce a sense of coherence and harmony among the elements of a building.
Sacred proportions
Among the Cistercians, Gothic, Renaissance, Egyptian, Semitic, Babylonian, Arab, Greek and Roman traditions; the harmonic proportions, human proportions, cosmological/astronomical proportions and orientations, and various aspects of sacred geometry (the vesica piscis), pentagram, golden ratio, and small whole-number ratios were all applied as part of the practice of architectural design. In the design of European cathedrals the necessary engineering to keep the structures from falling down gradually began to take precedence over or at least to have an influence on aesthetic proportions. Other concerns were symbolic astronomical references such as the towers of the Sun and Moon at Chartres and references to the various astrological and alchemical relationships being discovered by the natural philosophers and sages of the renaissance. The Roman Mille passus became the Myle of medieval western Europe and Roman arches and architecture while the mia chillioi influenced eastern Europe and its Gothic arches and architecture. Today in the Western hemisphere the foot is longer than the foote because of the researches of Galileo, Gabriel Mouton, Newton and others into the period of a seconds pendulum.
Proportion (architecture) One aspect of proportional systems is to make them as universally applicable as possible, not just to one application but as a universal ideal statement of the proper proportions. There is a relationship between length and width and height; between length and area and between area and volume. Doors and windows are fenestrated. Fenestration is important so that the negative area of openings has a relation to the area of walls. Plans are reflected in sections and elevations. Themes are developed which spin off and relate to but expand upon the themes found in other buildings. Often there is a symbolic sacred geometry which goes outside the proportions of the building to relate to the oservations of the beauty of nature and its proportions in time and space and the elements of natural philosophy. Then it occurred to someone that there is more to it than just pleasing proportions. Thomas Jefferson wrote of how the substantive scale of public buildings made a statement of government stability and gave a nation consequence. Going back in time the same logic applied to the Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepset, the Temple of Solomon, the Treasury of Athens, the Parthenon, and the Cathedrals and Mosques and Corporate Towers. The casinos of Las Vegas and the underwater hotels of Dubai are all competing to be the tallest, the biggest, the brightest, the most exciting to get international trade to come there and do business. In other words the modern business ethos is to be out of proportion, overscaling all the competition. Part of the practice of feng shui is a proportional system based on the double tatami mat. Feng Shui also includes within it the ideas of cosmic orientation and ordering, as do most systems of "Sacred Proportions".
Proportion (architecture) and Corinthian columns are 12/4. Having established the column proportions we move on to its arcade which may be regular with a single element at a spacing of 334 D, coupled with two elements at 113 D spaced 5 D, or alternating at 334 spaced 614 D. Variations include adding a series of arches between column cap and entablature in the Renaissance style Arcade rcade. Exterior door widths W, have trim 1/5 W for exterior doors and 1/6 W for interior doors. Door heights a re 1 D less than column heights. Anciently if a door is two cubits or between 36" and 42" wide, then its trim is between a fist and a span in width.
Proportion (architecture)
Vitruvian proportion
Vitruvius described as the principal source of proportion among the orders of proportion of the human figure. . According to Leonardo's notes in the accompanying text, written in mirror writing, it was made as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as described in a treatise by the Ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, who wrote that in the human body: a palm is the width of four fingers or three inches a foot is the width of four palms and is 36 fingers or 12 inches a cubit is the width of six palms a man's height is four cubits and 24 palms a pace is four cubits or five feet the length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man's height the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's height the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is one-fifth of a man's height the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face Leonardo is clearly illustrating Vitruvius' De architectura 3.1.3 which reads: The navel is naturally placed in the centre of the human body, and, if in a man lying with his face upward, and his hands and feet extended, from his navel as the centre, a circle be described, it will touch his fingers and toes. It is not alone by a circle, that the human body is thus circumscribed, as may be seen by placing it within a square. For measuring from the feet to the crown of the head, and then across the arms fully extended, we find the latter measure equal to the former; so that lines at right angles to each other, enclosing the figure, will form a square. Though he was certainly aware of the work of Pythagoras, it does not appear that he took the harmonic divisions of the octave as being relevant to the disposition of form, preferring simpler whole-number ratios to describe proportions. However, beyond the writings of Vitruvius, it seems likely that the ancient Greeks and Romans would occasionally use proportions derived from the golden ratio (most famously, in the Parthenon of Athens), and the Pythagorean divisions of the octave. These are found in the Rhynd papyrus 16. Care should be taken in reading too much into this, however, while simple geometric transformations can quite readily produce these proportions, the Egyptian were quite good at expressing arithmetic and geometric series as unit fractions. While, it is possible that the originators of the design may not have been aware of the particular proportions they were generating as they worked, it's more likely that the methods of construction using diagonals and curves would have taught them something. The Biblical proportions of Solomons temple caught the attention of both architects and scientists, who from a very early time began incorporating them into the architecture of cathedrals and other sacred geometry. Regarding the Pythagorean divisions of the octave mentioned above, these are a set of whole number ratios (based on core ratios of 1:2 (octave), 2:3 (fifth) and 3:4 (fourth)) which form the Pythagorean tuning. These proportions were thought to have a recognisable harmonic significance, regardless of whether they were perceived visually or
Proportion (architecture) auditorially, reflecting the Pythagorean idea that all things were numbers.
Renaissance orders
The Renaissance tried to extract and codify the system of proportions in the orders as used by the ancients, believing that with analysis a mathematically absolute ideal of beauty would emerge. Brunelleschi in particular studied interactions of perspective with the perception of proportion (as understood by the ancients). This focus on the perception of harmony was somewhat of a break from the Pythagorean ideal of numbers controlling all things. The work of de Chambray, Desgodetz and Perrault [10] eventually demonstrated that classical buildings had reference to standards of proportion that came directly from the original sense of the word geometry, the measure of the earth and its division into degrees, miles, stadia, cords, rods, paces, yards, feet, hands, palms and fingers
Le modulor
Based on apparently arbitrary proportions of an "ideal man" (possibly Le Corbusier himself) combined with the golden ratio and Vitruvian Man, Le Modulor was never popularly adopted among architects, but the system's graphic of the stylised man with one upraised arm is widely recognised and powerful. Anti-Modernists (Langhein, 2005) claim the modulor is not well suited to introduce proportion and pattern into architecture, to improve its form qualities (gestalt pragnance) and introduce shape grammar in design in building. However, through its application in the design of some of the last century's most beautifully proportioned and harmonic buildings (Le Corbusier: Architect of the Twentieth Century, Kenneth Frampton, 2002) Le Corbusier's work strongly disputes this.
Footnotes
[1] (Vitruvious ref. 23) [2] (Gillings ref. 16) [3] (R. A. Cordingley ref. 30) [4] (Michael Grant ref 26) [5] (Andrew George Ref 4) [6] (Gillings ref 16) [7] (Somers Clarke and R. Englebach ref.17) [8] (Herodotus ref. 24) [9] (Claudius Ptolemy ref. 25) [10] Tzonis and Lefaivre, 1986, p. 39.
Proportion (architecture)
References
Tzonis, A. and Lefaivre L., Classical Architecture: The Poetics of Order (1986), MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-20059-7 Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Pythagorean Harmony (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi. cgi?id=dv4-05) Padovan, R., Proportion: Science, Philosophy, Architecture (1999), Routledge. ISBN 0-419-22780-6 Langhein, J., Proportion and Traditional Architecture (2005), INTBAU Essay (London, The Prince's Foundation /INTBAU) (http://www.intbau.org/archive/essay10.htm)
Architectural references
30. R. A. Cordingley (1951). Norman's Parallel of the Orders of Architecture. Alex Trianti Ltd. Georges Gromort (Author) ; Richard Sammons (Introductory Essay) (2007). Theory of Mouldings (Classical America Series in Art and Architecture) (http://www.books-by-isbn.com/0-393/ 0393732339-Theory-of-Mouldings-C.-Howard-Walker-0-393-73233-9.html). W. W. Norton & Co.. C Howard Walker (Author) ; Richard Sammons (Foreword) (2001). The Elements of Classical Architecture (Classical America Series in Art and Architecture) (http://www.books-by-isbn.com/0-393/ 0393730514-The-Elements-of-Classical-Architecture-Georges-Gromort-Henry-Hope-Reed-0-393-73051-4. html). W. W. Norton & Co.. Learning From Palladio ; Branko Mitrovic (Author) ; W. W. Norton & Company (May 2004) ; ISBN 0-393-73116-2
Classical references
23. Vitruvius (1960). The Ten Books on Architecture. Dover. 24. Claudias Ptolemy (1991). The Geography. Dover. ISBN048626896. 25. Herodotus (1952). The History. William Brown. War with Judah, Sennacherib, siege of 701 BC
Historical references
26. Michael Grant (1987). The Rise of the Greeks. Charles Scribners Sons.
Mathematical references
27. Lucas N. H. Bunt, Phillip S. Jones, Jack D. Bedient (1976). The Historical Roots of Elementary Mathematics. Dover. ISBN0-486-25563-8.
Mensurational references
28. H Arthur Klein (1976). The World of Measurements. Simon and Schuster. 29 Francis H. Moffitt (1987). Surveying. Harper & Row. ISBN0-06-044554-8.
Proportion (architecture)
Egyptological references
13. Gardiner (1990). Egyptian Grammar. Griffith Institute. ISBN0-900416-35-1. 14. Antonio Loprieno (1995). Ancient Egyptian. CUP. ISBN0-521-44849-2. 15. Michael Rice (1990). Egypt's Making. Routledge. ISBN0-415-06454-6. 16. Gillings (1972). Mathematics in the time of the Pharaohs. MIT Press. ISBN0-262-07045-6. 17. Somers Clarke and R. Englebach (1990). Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture. Dover. ISBN0-486-26485-8.
Linguistic references
18. Marie-Loise Thomsen, (1984). Mesopotamia 10 The Sumerian Language. Academic Press. ISBN87-500-3654-8. 19. Silvia Luraghi (1990). Old Hittite Sentence Structure. Routledge. ISBN0-415-04735-8. 20. J. P. Mallory (1989). In Search of the Indo Europeans. Thames and Hudson. ISBN0-500-27616-1. 21. Anne H. Groton (1995). From Alpha to Omega. Focus Information group. ISBN0-941051-38-2. 22. Hines (1981). Our Latin Heritage. Harcourt Brace. ISBN0-15-389468-7.
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