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It is often stated that ancient architectural monuments such as the Pantheon were constructed as models of the Cosmos. An integral part of that interpretation is the notion that the architectural form of the dome represents the heavens.... more
It is often stated that ancient architectural monuments such as the Pantheon were constructed as models of the Cosmos. An integral part of that interpretation is the notion that the architectural form of the dome represents the heavens. Ancient cultures created two kinds of models for the universe: analogue models represent their objects through physical resemblance;' digital models represent their objects as functions of time. While the idea of roundness appears to be one of the primordial distinctions made with regards to the heavens, round buildings present particular problems that the architect has to solve before he is able to construct a round building as a cosmic model. This paper traces ideas of roundness and the notion of heavenly events as a function of time in ancient culture. It examines the nature of circular and spherical forms as structure. Finally, this information is applied to an analysis of the Pantheon in order to reveal its triumph over of structural problem...
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It is a great pleasure to write a paper about architecture and mathematics on the occasion of the conference, Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music and Science. It is architecture's intimate relationship to mathematics that... more
It is a great pleasure to write a paper about architecture and mathematics on the occasion of the conference, Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music and Science. It is architecture's intimate relationship to mathematics that underscores its ties to art, music and science. The subject is too vast to lie within the range of a single discussion; this paper will look at some facets of these various relationships with the aim of introducing the reader to ideas meriting further study.
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The subject I am going to talk about here belongs, one may say, to the prehistory of descriptive geometry: it is part of our modem discovery of space. Three times a civilization has made such an investigation: in ancient Egypt, in... more
The subject I am going to talk about here belongs, one may say, to the prehistory of descriptive geometry: it is part of our modem discovery of space. Three times a civilization has made such an investigation: in ancient Egypt, in Antiquity, and in modern times, where perhaps we should speak of space-time. And each time, not only science, but the arts participated in this endeavor as well. It is always extremely interesting to compare the progress of the sciences with the evolution of the arts, as well as their histories, their results, and their methods. But it is fair to say that in spite of many valiant pioneering efforts, so far this has not been done systematically enough: think for instance of medieval architecture and its importance for the progress of technology and science.
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What does the seventeenth-century Rundetarn (Round Tower) of Copenhagen have in common with the thirteenth-century Leaning Tower of Pisa? Or Houston's Astrodome, the first indoor baseball stadium built in the United States, with the... more
What does the seventeenth-century Rundetarn (Round Tower) of Copenhagen have in common with the thirteenth-century Leaning Tower of Pisa? Or Houston's Astrodome, the first indoor baseball stadium built in the United States, with the vast dome of the Pantheon in Rome? Or a Chinese pagoda (fig. 1) with the Sydney Opera house (fig. 2)? A first response might be "shape" but a more accurate answer would be "symmetry". Each of these strange couples of buildings share a different kind of symmetry that links them, in spite of their temporal and cultural differences. As Magdolna and István Hargittai have noted, symmetry, in architecture as in other arts, is "a unifying concept".[1]
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A majority of the many different types of applications of mathematics in architecture are present, in some rudimentary way at least, in even the earliest myths of this discipline. The more extensive set of application types in use today... more
A majority of the many different types of applications of mathematics in architecture are present, in some rudimentary way at least, in even the earliest myths of this discipline. The more extensive set of application types in use today shares a clear lineage to these ancestral cases. The specific formulas used by architects and engineers may have changed, and, amongst other things, their capacity to work with non-orthogonal geometries has also improved, but the fundamental purpose of the application of mathematics in architecture has endured throughout history. The purpose of the present chapter is to examine and to begin to identify the different ways in which mathematics is used in architecture.
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... ИНФОРМАЦИЯ О ПУБЛИКАЦИИ. Название публикации, MICHELANGELO'S MEDICI CHAPEL: THE CUBE, THE SQUARE AND THE ROOT-2 RECTANGLE. Авторы, K. Williams. Журнал, Leonardo. Издательство, MIT Press. Год выпуска, 1997, ISSN, 0024-094X. ...