Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 1 : Reading the past : What is architectural history?
“Geometry… is of much assistance in architecture, and in particular it teaches us the use of the rule and compasses, by which especially we acquire readiness in making plans for buildings in their grounds, and rightly apply the square, the level, and the plummet. By means of optics… the light in buildings can be drawn from fixed quarters of the sky. …Difficult questions involving symmetry are solved by means of geometrical theories and methods.”
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter I, Sec. 4
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Vitruvius 203
Roman writer, architect and engineer -80–-15 BCRelated quotes
Waiting on God (1950), Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God
Advertisement, p.4
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)
Vers une architecture [Towards an Architecture] (1923)
Preface (8 May 1686)
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
Context: The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic: and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved.
On geomatric motion. A History of the Work Concept: From Physics to Economics, by Agamenon Oliveira, p. 154.
Source: Drenai series, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf, Ch. 13
Peter Bernus, Kai Mertins, Günter Schmidt (1998) Handbook on Architectures of Information Systems. p. 244
An Outline of European Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1942] 1957), p. 23.