Points of Departure
Michael Silk|Ingo Gildenhard|Rosemary Barrow
The ten books of Vitruvius' On Architecture cover a range topics, from architecture and town planning to temples other public buildings, private houses civil military engineering . In the opening pages his treatise, Vitruvius argues that ‘architectural learning’ is matter technical know-how craftsmanship, but also ‘letters’: mathematics, history, philosophy, music, medicine, law, astronomy. Vitruvian context which ‘perfectly shaped man’ belongs, idealized human form related Platonic-Pythagorean valuation perfect numbers, as well ‘perfect’ geometrical forms. long perspective, responses Vitruvius, legacy more generally, Alberti Durand beyond, take on larger meaning: stages in an ongoing struggle between two views architecture, humane art technological practice, and, fundamentally still, more-than-human less-than-human understanding existential realities.