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Conclusion: Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture Matthew A

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Conclusion: Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture Matthew A $UFKLWHFWXUDO Cohen, M A 2014 Conclusion: Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional +LVWRULHV Systems in the History of Architecture. Architectural Histories, 2(1): 7, pp. 1-15, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.bw EDITORIAL Conclusion: Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture Matthew A. Cohen* The study of proportional systems today lacks a common framework for discussion. In this conclusion to the special collection of essays on this topic published in Architectural Histories, Matthew A. Cohen provides ten principles as a basis for future discussion on this complex topic. Introduction scholars use this word, either through the use of the pre- In his keynote address to the conference ‘Proportional ceding terms or in the context of the discussion. Systems in the History of Architecture’, hosted by Leiden University, 17–19 March 2011, Howard Burns posited that Principle 2: Proportional systems must be the study of proportional systems today lacks ‘ground described with verifiable measurements rules’. In response, I present the following list of ten prin- In any study of proportional systems that refers to pro- ciples as a suggested framework for new discussion of this portional ratios either found in existing buildings or in complex topic.1 historical drawings, those proportions-as-ratio must be described accurately, as they really are, based on meas- Principle 1: The word ‘proportion’ signifies two urements recorded directly from the object. Those meas- unrelated meanings urements, in turn, must be described in sufficient detail As I note in the introduction to this special issue of to enable the reader to go to the object and measure Architectural Histories, ‘Introduction: Two Kinds of between the same points of measurement in order to Proportion’, the subject of architectural proportion today verify them. When point cloud laser scans are cited, the is literally defined by ambiguity because the very word method by which the data were acquired needs to be proportion simultaneously signifies two unrelated and made sufficiently transparent to enable the reader to spot in some ways opposite meanings. Proportion technically potential errors and understand the limitations of the denotes a mathematical ratio, which I call ‘proportion-as- survey. Also, when possible, the digital model or detailed ratio’, but in common usage it also connotes a broader images derived from it need to be made accessible to the meaning that in 1723 Ephraim Chambers described as ‘a reader in order to allow verification of all measurements Suitableness of parts, founded on the good Taste of the extracted from it. Descriptions of proportions that are not Architect’, or, an aesthetic assessment that I call ‘propor- supported by verifiable measurements can at best be con- tion-as-beauty’ (Le Clerc 1723–1724, 1: 29).2 Since the sidered subjective interpretations of appearances, which first meaning is quantitative and the second qualitative, may have their own value but lack the foundation of neither can influence the other predictably and repeat- scholarly documentation. Finally, verifiability requires not edly, as the scientific method would require in order to only that authors provide measurements, but that readers prove a causal relationship between them. When his- insist on them and learn how to evaluate them rigorously. torians use the word proportion without qualification, however, they invite their audiences to understand it as Principle 3: Proportional systems are never a fusion of the concepts of ratio and beauty, and thus as executed exactly as intended an implicit assumption that certain proportional ratios Since irregularity is the normal condition of architecture, contribute beauty to architecture (see Principle 10). Thus, some degree of dimensional discrepancy between the in my ‘Introduction’ to this special collection, I have pro- proportions the architect intended and the proportions posed that the word proportion be broken down into its of the built object are unavoidable. Potential structural incongruent component meanings that I have termed degradation and measurement error must be considered ‘proportion-as-ratio’ and ‘proportion-as-beauty’, and that integral to this problem. Part of the architectural histo- one of these meanings hereafter be specified whenever rian’s job, therefore, is to acknowledge these discrepan- cies and estimate their extents based on internal evidence from the object. For example, my San Lorenzo survey * Washington State University, United States reveals that all six columns in the western three bays (first [email protected] phase) of the nave differ in height by no more than 1.5 Art. 7, page 2 of 15 Cohen: Conclusion Fig. 1: Summary of the San Lorenzo nave arcade bay proportional system (spread between two drawings for clarity). At left is a geometrical overlay consisting of a square and a root-2 rectangle. At right is a geometrical overlay consisting of a rectangle called a dual diagon. Source: author. centimeters from one to the next (Fig. 1 shows the nave intended to align perfectly with the top of this overlay arcade bay design that is repeated eight times in each (on this construction error, see Cohen 2013: 104–111; nave arcade). 2008: 33–37). If the masons could achieve this level of precision in duplicating column heights, I reasoned, they must have Principle 4: Proportional systems are executed been able to execute the various width-to-height propor- in terms of local units of measure tions that they intended between each pair of adjacent Proportional systems may contain abstract proportional columns within the same level of precision. Therefore, in ratios, but once a building construction project begins, this part of the basilica I considered any proportional dis- those ratios become expressed in terms of the local unit of crepancy (i.e., between an apparently intended propor- measure. That unit may be specific to the municipality in tion and the building measurements) that exceeded 1.5 which the construction takes place, or to the construction centimeters to be abnormally large, meaning that either site itself.3 I believe it is safe to say that every historic build- the architect did not intend that proportion after all, or ing (and perhaps many pre-historic ones) that has ever that some extenuating historical circumstance that has resulted from substantial expenditures of labor, resources to be identified caused the discrepancy. In other build- and capital was built in accordance with such a unit, regu- ings, larger discrepancies appear to be normal. Such esti- lated by the supervising authority at the time and place of mates need to be made case by case. Thus at San Lorenzo, construction. Available evidence indicates that in historic based on the analysis described above, I determined that buildings, measurements expressed in these units and an 11- to 12-centimeter discrepancy between the col- their subdivisions often add layers of numerical informa- umn shaft heights and the height of a square + root-2 tion to proportional systems, in addition to any abstract rectangle proportion that I propose was intended in each ratios that the architect may have intended. nave arcade bay (Fig. 1, left) must be the result of con- For example, the basic framework of the San Lorenzo struction error. Note that the tops of the column shafts, nave arcade bay proportional system consists of three over- where they meet the astragals, rise slightly above the top lapping geometrical figures: the square, the root-2 rectan- of the square + root-2 rectangle overlay in the accurate gle, and the dual diagon (Fig. 1). These figures embody scale drawing in Figure 1, though they were probably abstract ratios that we can describe mathematically as Cohen: Conclusion Art. 7, page 3 of 15 Fig. 2: Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence. Photo: author's archive. 1:1, 1:√2 and 1:2√2-1, respectively. The preceding numer- geometrical overlays (Cesariano 1521), and the treatises als and symbols, however, are modern conventions of of Vitruvius (1st century BC; see Vitruvius 1914), Alberti mathematical communication that are not represented as (1485), and Vignola (1562) that describe proportional sys- such in the early-15th-century San Lorenzo proportional tems in terms of modules, neglect to acknowledge local system. Only when we convert the measurements from units of measure, and thus provide an incomplete picture centimeters to Florentine braccia (1 braccio = 58.36 cm) of how proportional systems worked in practice.6 do we see that the architect of this proportional system described these ratios in terms of numbers of braccia.4 Principle 5: Belief-based proportional systems Significant numbers expressed as braccia in this propor- often communicate through simultaneity7 2 2 2 tional system include 1 3 braccia, 9 3 braccia, 13 3 brac- We have seen that numbers expressed in terms of local units 2 cia and 17 3 braccia. The architect used these numbers of measure can interact not only with individual dimen- to form Boethian number progressions and numerical sions, or with sets of dimensions associated with geomet- approximations of irrational ratios. He thus used numbers rical figures, to add layers of iconographical meaning to of braccia — the local unit of measure — to add numeri- an architectural composition (see Principle 4). Additional cal layers of meaning on top of the geometrical layers in layers of numerical meaning can be added through quanti- this proportional system (Fig. 1; see Cohen 2013: 53–111; ties of repetitious building components. Since numbers of 2008: 19–37). units of measure (such as braccia) and numbers of building In his paper in this special collection and elsewhere, components (such as columns or bays) are fundamentally Stephen Murray notes that the two tallest Gothic cathe- different from one another, their combinations in propor- drals, Amiens and Beauvais, express the number 144, a tional systems can be profoundly interesting.
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