Vitruvius on architecture / Thomas Gordon Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vitruvius Pollio

Contributor:

Smith, Thomas Gordon, 1948-2021.

Standardized Title:

De architectura. Selections. English

Language:

English

Latin

Subjects (All):

Architecture--Early works to 1800.

Architecture.

Physical Description:

232 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 28 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Monacelli Press, 2003.

Summary:

In about 25 B.C. the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio presented to the emperor Augustus ten scrolls that contained everything he knew about architecture. Synthesizing his studies of earlier Greek writings as well as lessons drawn from his own design career, the Ten Books on Architecture discussed architectural practice and education; building materials; the correct proportions and elements of the Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian; the design of temples, public buildings, and private houses; and engineering and military planning. More than two thousand years later his masterwork stands as both the most comprehensive architectural text of antiquity and one of the most important design treatises ever written.

In addition to three of the most recognized ideals of architectural design -- firmitas, utilitas, and venustas, or strength, function, and beauty -- Vitruvius defined six principles that continue to resonate: ordinatio and symmetria, or modules and their relationships within and as a whole; dispositio, design and representation of buildings; eurythmia, thoughtful modification of rules; decor, selection of appropriate architectural elements and configurations; and distributio, organizational skills needed in building. Vitruvius also explained how invention, or "lively mental energy," is required to unite the theoretical and the practical aspects of these principles.

Just as Vitruvius set out to catalog the rules and ideals of ancient Greek architecture, Thomas Gordon Smith in Vitruvius on Architecture presents the rules and ideals of Vitruvius himself. This volume contains the five books most relevant to contemporary architecture along with a wealth of visual material: photographs of ancient structures from Greece, Italy, and Turkey; related sculptures, frescoes, and reliefs; hypothetical re-creations of Vitruvius's now-lost illustrations; and a series of exquisitely rendered watercolor plates based on his descriptions. Vitruvius on Architecture is an exceptional accomplishment: a study as relevant to the present as Vitruvius's was to his own day (and to architecture since) and a remarkable twenty-first-century embodiment of "lively mental energy."

Contents:

From The Ten Books on Architecture

Elements of Architecture 208.

Notes:

"Emendation by Stephen Kellogg of the English translation of The ten books on architecture by Morris Hicky Morgan ; new renderings by Thomas Gordon Smith and Matthew Aaron Rosenshine."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-231).

ISBN:

1580931278

1885254989

OCLC:

52196303