Architecture

Abstract

According to the variety of fields of knowledge that make up the science of architecture, the chapter investigates interrelations between the technological literature on architecture and literature pertaining to humanistic scholarship as well as to mathematics and mechanics. (1) In the Renaissance, close interchanges developed between humanistic scholarship and architectural expertise, not only in relation to Vitruvius’ famous De architectura libri decem but also to archaeological questions concerning Roman antiquities. (2) As regards the geometrical methods applied in the architectural design and construction processes, the chapter shows that all of the remarkable methods cannot be taken as applications of erudite (Euclidean) geometry but rather as instances of a “constructive geometry” that developed alongside it. (3) As regards structural design and scientific statics the chapter states that, according to our present understanding, the master builders of the Gothic as well the Renaissance age did not follow any principles of statics when designing structurally, but a number of geometrical procedures and rules instead. Accordingly, it was not until the second half of the seventeenth century that some architects began to resort routinely to early modern scientific statics when designing structures, and that a technological literature on structural design emerged.KeywordsVitruviusArchitectural draftingPerspective drawingsOrthogonal plansConstructive geometryStructural designStatics