Classical Architecture

Classical Architecture

1. Vitruvius

   • Proportion
     • Gold Ratio: 1:.6180339887 "Not pleasing to the brain, but pleasing to the eye"
     • "The design of temples depends on symmetry, the rules of which architects should be most careful to observe" - Book 3, Chapter 1.1
     • Aesthetics
       • The human body is the perfect example of perfect symmetry
         • A rulebook on proportion
     • Proportion and Symmetry are most important when building temples
   • Vitruvian Man
     • Apex of symmetry
   • "De Architectura", only surviving work

2. Greek Orders of Architecture

   • Ionic
   • Doric
   • Corinthian
   • Roman Orders of Architecture
     • Tuscan
     • Composite
   • The Parthenon

3. Types of Pillars

4. Changes over time according to current uses/ideas/values

5. "A form of symbolic representation. Although buildings change ownership and get put to varied ideological uses by different regimes... they also belong to their historical moment and have real cultural effects along with the spacial ones."

6. Renaissance 1300-1700 AD

   • Leon Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472)
     • Ambitions to reclaim Vitruvius for modern times
     • Ten Books on Architecture "De re aedificatoria"

7. Arrangement of integral parts into a coherent whole according to proportion, harmony and symmetry

   • "To be beautiful, a living creature, and every whole made up of parts, must... present a certain order in its arrangement of parts" - Aristotle, "Poetics" v.2 2322