Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, an illustration of the human body inscribed in the circle and the square derived from a passage about geometry and human proportions in Vitruvius’s writings
The concept of building with natural materials is nothing new. It was codified by Vitruvius, who wrote his treatise De architectura at the end of the 1st century BC. The work consisted of ten scrolls, or volumes, and has survived as major work on architecture for over 2000 years. It’s now available in ebook form from Project Gutenberg
“Vitruvius is famous for asserting…that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitas, utilitas, venustas — that is, it must be strong or durable, useful, and beautiful. According to Vitruvius, architecture is an imitation of nature. As birds and bees built their nests, so humans constructed housing from natural materials, that gave them shelter against the elements. When perfecting this art of building, the Ancient Greek invented the architectural orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. It gave them a sense of proportion, culminating in understanding the proportions of the greatest work of art: the human body. This led Vitruvius in defining his Vitruvian Man, as drawn later by Leonardo da Vinci: the human body inscribed in the circle and the square (the fundamental geometric patterns of the cosmic order).”
-Above quote and Leonardo drawing from Wikipedia
Oh Yeah! Vitruvius what a great author. Reading him is like returning to the basic. He had a great influence to Palladio that had written a book in the 16 century about classical building. His book serve to almost all the building so call classical buildings (even the modern replicas ) , in establishing a proportion of height/diameter/ spacing of colums. So the architects used it on and on for centuries giving the image that they were genius but in fact they were following a receipe with little creativity. Vitrivius and Palladio were really passionates and freaks of architecture. Another of my favorite is a book from the fench archeologist –architect Viollet-le-Duc : dictionnaire raisoné de l’architecture (available in english ). Beside fantastic drawings, he his also a specialist of history and philosophy of the middle ages which is mixed in the descriptions of buildings. And the book has a good chunk on the clothing , the armors, and other objects of the period . With all the scrap that many contemporary architects does , they would greatly gain in reading that book that was written 150 years ago. Just like Vitruvius ,it is returning to the basic of architecture. Claude
Oh Yeah! Vitruvius what a great author. Reading him is like returning to the basic. He had a great influence to Palladio that had written a book in the 16 century about classical building. His book serve to almost all the building so call classical buildings (even the modern replicas ) , in establishing a proportion of height/diameter/ spacing of colums. So the architects used it on and on for centuries giving the image that they were genius but in fact they were following a receipe with little creativity. Vitrivius and Palladio were really passionates and freaks of architecture. Another of my favorite is a book from the fench archeologist –architect Viollet-le-Duc : dictionnaire raisoné de l’architecture (available in english ). Beside fantastic drawings, he his also a specialist of history and philosophy of the middle ages which is mixed in the descriptions of buildings. And the book has a good chunk on the clothing , the armors, and other objects of the period . With all the scrap that many contemporary architects does , they would greatly gain in reading that book that was written 150 years ago. Just like Vitruvius ,it is returning to the basic of the purpose of building
Yes, the Viollet-de-Luc book in English is "The Habitations of Man in All Ages"
-Lloyd