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Architecture and geometry in the age of the Baroque / George L. Hersey.
Kislak Center for Special Collections - Furness Shakespeare Library (Van Pelt 628) NA956 .H47 2000
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Hersey, George L.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Architecture, Baroque--Europe.
- Architecture, Baroque.
- Architecture, Modern--17th century--Europe.
- Architecture, Modern.
- Architecture, Modern--18th century--Europe.
- Geometry in architecture.
- Architectural design--Mathematics.
- Architectural design.
- Europe.
- Geometry in architecture--Europe.
- Physical Description:
- 273 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2000.
- Summary:
- The age of the Baroque, a time when great strides were made in science and mathematics, witnessed the construction of some of the world's most magnificent buildings. What did the work of great architects such as Bernini, Blondel, Guarini, and Wren have to do with Descartes, Galileo, Kepler, Desargues, and Newton? In Architecture and Geometry in the Age of the Baroque, George Hersey explores the ways in which Baroque architecture, with its dramatic shapes and playful experimentation with classical forms, reflects the scientific thinking of the time. He introduces us to a concept of geometry that encompassed much more than the science we know today, one that included geometrics (number and shape games) as well as the art of geomancy, or magic and prophecy using shapes and numbers.
- Hersey first concentrates on specific problems in geometry and architectural design. He then explores the affinities between musical chords and several types of architectural form. He turns to advances in optics, such as artificial lenses and magic lanterns, to show how architects incorporated light, a heavenly emanation, into their impressive domes. With ample illustrations and lucid, witty language easily understood by the nonmathematician, Hersey shows how abstract ideas were transformed into visual, tactile form -- the epicycles of the cosmos, the sexual mystique surrounding the cube, and the imperfections of heavenly bodies. Some two centuries later, he finds that the geometric principles of the Baroque resonate, often unexpectedly, in the work of architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. A discussion of these surprising links to the past rounds out this brilliant reexamination of some of the long-forgotten beliefs and practices that helped produce some of Europe's greatest masterpieces.
- Contents:
- Baroque Architecture and Baroque Geometry
- Effable Shapes
- Square-Based Proportion
- Effable Number Sequences
- The Golden Section Sequence
- The Fibonacci Sequence
- Heavenly Fabrics
- 2 Frozen Music 22
- Modular Music
- Planetary Music
- Angel Music
- Architectural Acoustics
- Sounding Boxes for Preachers
- Blondel
- The Attic Bass
- Consonance and Dissonance
- Spatial Triads
- The Music of Bernini's Baldacchino
- 3 The Light of Unseen Worlds 52
- Number, Light, and Music
- Projecting Images
- The Eye
- Lenses and Reflectors
- Microscopes, Telescopes, and Magic Lanterns
- Optical Domes and Lanterns
- St. Peter's
- The Invalides
- St. Paul's
- The Paris Pantheon
- Armillary Spheres and Orreries
- Boullee's Newton Tomb
- St. Bride's
- Fleet Street
- 4 Cubices Rationes 78
- Engendering Geometry
- "Congruence" or Tiling
- The Cube and Its Progeny
- Pregnant Platonic Solids
- Rhombic and Archimedean Solids
- 5 Symmetries 98
- What Is Symmetry?
- What Has Symmetry Been?
- Reflective Symmetry
- Translatory Symmetry
- Glide Symmetry
- Wallpaper Symmetry
- Further Adventures of the Nine-Square Lattice
- Spiral Symmetries
- 6 Stretched Circles and Squeezed Spheres 132
- The Beauties of Distortion
- Ovals, Ellipses, Parabolas, and Hyperbolas
- Borromini
- St. Peter's Colonnade
- Blondel's Parabolic and Hyperbolic Openings
- Squeezed Spheres
- Packed Paraboloids
- 7 Projection 156
- Projective Geometry
- Descartes's Lattice
- The Costruzione Legittima
- Girard Desargues's Perspective
- Desargues's Geometry
- Shadow Projection
- Projection in Military Architecture
- Projection and Spiral Stairs
- 8 Epicycles 183
- Epicycles (and Epicycloids)
- Epicyclic Architecture
- Eccentric Epicycles
- Elliptical Epicycles
- Broken Symmetry
- 9 Unforgotten Lore 202
- Geometry in the Twentietri Century
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Le Corbusier
- The Modulor Man
- The Other Fathers of the Modulor Man
- Modulor Lattices.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [225]-266) and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.
- ISBN:
- 0226327833
- 0226327841
- OCLC:
- 43851453
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