Generating the Pantheon’s Dome: Cultural Paradigms and Shape Grammars

Abstract

The paper examines some of the possible ways to generate the coffered domes, where generative grammars are determined by different cultural paradigms. A method applied is the shape generation method, that uses shape grammars, which take shapes as primitive and have shape specific rules, as described by G. Stiny and J. Gips. The generation of the three dimensional shape consists in the definition of a language of two dimensional shapes, the selection of the shape in that language, a specification of a sphere mapping schema and the determination of a location and scale of the shape on the series of concentric spheres of a given size [1, 2]. This work shows that the essential differences between the Pantheon’s dome and some “Pantheon inspired” coffered domes are caused by applying different generative grammars, characterized by their cultures.