Proportion: Science, Philosophy, Architecture

by Richard Padovan

This handbook provides readers with a well-illustrated and readable comparative guide to proportion systems in architecture, setting out the mathematical principles that underlie the main systems and illustrating these with examples of their use in historical and modern buildings. The main body of the text traces the interplay of abstraction and empathy through the history of science, philosophy and architecture from the early Greeks through to the two early twentieth-century architects who made proportion the focus of their work: Le Corbusier and Van der Laan. The book ends with a reflection on the present and future role of proportion in architecture.

Genres: Architecture, Philosophy, Nonfiction

402 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Katherine]

Padovan creates a lucid journey through history tying art, philosophy and science together through the theme of proportion. There's a great explanation on the principles of the golden section, although it does not dig too deeply beyond the basic concepts. Also nice are the sections on Aristotle and Plato, delving into the religion behind numbers.

[Ellen Brenna]

Very dry but extremely interesting examination of architectural proportion.

By "very dry" I mean "full of math".