Proportion is a central principle of

architectural theory Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and an important connection between

mathematics and art Mathematics and art are related in a variety of ways. Mathematics has itself been described as an art motivated by beauty. Mathematics can be discerned in arts such as music, dance, painting, architecture, sculpture, and textiles. This artic ...

. It is the visual effect of the relationships of the various objects and spaces that make up a structure to one another and to the whole. These relationships are often governed by multiples of a standard unit of length known as a "module". Proportion in architecture was discussed by

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...

Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. H ...

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of th ...

, and

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

among others.

Roman architecture

Vitruvius

Swiss-Commemorative-Coin-1987-CHF-5-obverse

Architecture in Roman antiquity was rarely documented except in the writings of

' treatise '' De architectura''. Vitruvius served as an engineer under Julius Caesar during the first Gallic Wars (58–50 BC). The treatise was dedicated to Emperor Augustus. As Vitruvius defined the concept in the first chapters of the treatise, he mentioned the three prerequisites of architecture are firmness (''firmitas''), commodity (''utilitas''), and delight (''venustas''), which require the architects to be equipped with a varied kind of learning and knowledge of many branches. Moreover, Vitruvius identified the "Six Principles of Design" as order (''ordinatio''), arrangement (''dispositio''), proportion (''eurythmia''), symmetry (''symmetria''), propriety (''decor'') and economy (''distributio''). Among the six principles, proportion interrelates and supports all the other factors in geometrical forms and arithmetical ratios. The word ''symmetria'', usually translated to "symmetry" in modern renderings, in ancient times meant something more closely related to "mathematical harmony" and measurable proportions. Vitruvius tried to describe his theory in the makeup of the human body, which he referred to as the perfect or golden ratio. The principles of measurement units digit, foot, and cubit also came from the dimensions of a Vitruvian Man. More specifically, Vitruvius used the total height of 6 feet of a person, and each part of the body takes up a different ratio. For example, the face is about 1/10 of the total height, and the head is about 1/8 of the total height. Vitruvius used these ratios to prove that the composition of classical orders mimicked the human body, thereby ensuring aesthetic harmonization when people viewed architectural columns.

Classical architecture

classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect V ...

, the module was established as the radius of the lower shaft of a classical column, with proportions expressed as a fraction or multiple of that module.

James Stevens Curl James Stevens Curl (born 26 March 1937)Contemporary Authors, vols. 37–40, ed. Ann Every, Gale/Cengage Learning, 1979, p. 110 is an architectural historian, architect, and author with an extensive range of publications to his name. Early life an ...

(ed.), ''Oxford Dictionary of Architecture'', 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2006), 496.

Le Corbusier

In his '' Le Modulor'' (1948), Le Corbusier presented a system of proportions which took the

golden ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0, where the Greek letter phi ( ...

and a man with a raised arm as the scalable modules of proportion.

Roman architecture

Vitruvius

Classical architecture

Le Corbusier

See also

References

Further reading