Find Your Geometry

Woman Teaching Geometry, 1309 - 1316, France (Paris).
As it is easier to understand what is geometry in general, the geometry in architecture demands certain understanding of history. In this beautifully didactic illustration, geometry can be understood in two parts of a whole: the measuring instruments(a set-square and a compass), and the world of triangle, circle, square, and rectangle. The painting connotes a real world and an abstracted world that signify one and another.

"In the preface to book vi of De Architectura, Vitruvius recounts the story of Aristuppus, the Socratic philosopher, who was shipwrecked but reached the shore of Rhodes. There he noticed geometric figures drawn in the sand, and is said to have shouted to his companions, 'there is hope, for I see traces of men.' Vestigium hominis video, quoted by Kant, Critique of Judgement, sect. 64. If a footprint would have signified a man, a circle signified a mind. (see W. Oechslin in Daidalos 1) Yet geometric forms are not a monopoly of men. (see natural form ) Still, for Kant, the Aristuppus story means that here we must assume an actual causality according to a concept and look for the agent."(quoted from: Christian Hubert.)

We will discuss a few aspects of geometry as Parti in today's studio.

Two images to illustrate the internal and external signification of geometry in relation to mass and form:

Credited to: Building; Mchines, Pamphlet Architecture No. 12(1987).