建筑专业英语课文1.1（华中科技大学出版社）

SECTION 1: ARCHITECTURE 7

1.1.3 Geometry①

Geometry is the foundation of the 20th century modern architectural form. The philosophical and pragmatic qualities of geometry and mathematical order have been applied in architecture for centuries. However these had not been explicitly explored and maturely developed into abstract forms until the early 20th century. “Formal un-deniability” — the divine nature of forms, a central theme for philosophers and architects since antiquity — has been considered and studied as a reflection of man’s conquest over nature. Cube, sphere, cone, pyramid and cylinder were developed along the way.

Geometry may be applied in architecture at several levels, namely:

1. To create the overall massing and configuration. A basic describable and recognizable geometric form, such as a cube, prism, or dome, is used as the significant, dominating or perceptible element. Other forms may be added, such as overlap form.

2. To establish the underlying relationship between parts and whole. Elements may be laid out and scaled in proportion to the overall composition to strengthen a sense of unity.

3. To emphasize structural order and rhythm. Building structure, by its nature and expression, creates a sense of order in space. However, such an order is further emphasized through the pattern, layout, and intervals of solid and void.

4. To generate and maintain geometric fields. Different geometric shapes, forms and solids offer different psychological stimuli, which in turn evoke a range of different feelings. Yet they also offer a fascinating possibility for order, unity, and rhythm. Muslim mosques, for example, incorporated strong, simple geometric shapes to achieve functional results whereas early Christian churches utilized a highly articulated cruciform plan. Such arrangements were the combined result of cultural concerns.

Le Corbusier accompanied by many other early modern architects and painters took geometry as the way to search for new forms, which address the needs of modern man. “Man walks in a straight line because he has a goal and knows where he is going; he has made up his mind to reach some particular place and he goes straight to it. The

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① This text is from Jia Beisi. Architectonics of Modernism, 1st Edition, Beijing: China Architecture & Building Press, 2003.

② pragmatic a. guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory ③ Muslim a. of or relating to or supporting Islamism

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pack-donkey meanders alone, meditates a little in his scatter brained and distracted fashion, he zigzags...” Le Corbusier believed that modern sentiment is a spirit of geometry, which is anti-individualism and the path towards a perfect world for everyone governed by orders. “Exactitude and order are its essential conditions... In the place of individualism and its fevered products, we prefer the commonplace, the everyday, the rule to the exception...” It is therefore not surprising that “Man is a geometrical animal” became one of his well-known statements.

Regulating lines had been widely used as a tool to compose elements and spaces for early Modernist artists and architects. For example, Le Corbusier had adopted this tool in his architectural work since 1911, and in his paintings since 1919. But these tools served only purposes of refinement; he used them after the design had been drawn up and only then to make its proportions more exact: “to perfect the composition”. There were also incidents when the design of an architectural project was inspired by the regulating lines of his earlier paintings. Le Corbusier shared this experience in his 1938 design for a business center in Algiers:

“As I opened the door into the studio where I did my painting, my eyes were caught by a set of regulating lines painted straight on to the canvas on the back of a 1931 painting. Suddenly I saw the whole thing clearly in my mind: here was the framework of proportions which would fit into the landscape of Algiers the skyscraper of which I had been thinking since 1930. That is, for eight years. For eight years I had been building up in my mind the idea of the “Cartesian” skyscraper as opposed to the irrational sky-scrapers of New York or Chicago: internal biology, structure, general position.... On that day, suddenly, the idea became reality: the proportion—unity, variety, and rhythm.”

“Geometry”, for Le Corbusier, sometimes meant such elements of form as lines, circles and square; more often it referred to guidelines, rules, modules or a proportional agreement between the parts and the whole, one in which everything is in agreement with everything else, where parts follow the whole, and vice versa. A whole may comprise one part, or aggregation of parts. Parts may be spatial or formal entities, which correspond to user-spaces, structural components, massing, volume, or combinations of these elements. Parts may adjoin, overlap or be separate from each other. The relationship of parts and whole is reinforced by geometry.

Geometrical proportion systems, when skillfully applied, provide structural

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①② ① meander v. to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course ② meditate v. think intently and at length, as for spiritual purposes ③ Cartesian a. of or relating to Rene Descartes or his works ④ vice versa: with the order reversed

SECTION 1: ARCHITECTURE 9

organization and visual unity to the building. For example, the Pythagorean 3-4-5 right triangle is widely used in Andrea Palladio’s villa; it occurs in the height, width and length of its many rooms. Each of these proportion systems has within itself a specific kind of equilibrium, which in turn gives each one its own character.

They are chosen based on the demands of the composition itself. Another geometrical system widely used to develop harmonious proportions is the golden section rectangle, whose long and short sides are in the proportion of the transcendental number phi ( = 1.618...). Many studies of the Greek Parthenon show that the frontal elevation design has been ordered according to the golden section rectangle. The basic organization of the Parthenon is very simple. A double row of columns surrounds a central room and supports spanning stones, which in turn support a triangular pediment roof. The master builders further adjusted its ideal abstract geometry to deepen our experience of space, order, and light. Each part, and the whole ensemble, was lovingly modeled to intensify our sense of its mass and space. For example, the Doric columns’ vertical grooved fluting reveals the roundness of their cylindrical shafts through the shadows cast in the brilliant Greek sunlight. The sticklike columns are actually stacks of carved stone drums, shaped to flowing lines in every dimension. The columns’ subtle swelling and the slight upward bowing of the stylobate and plinth that compose the base of the building correct one’s eyes’ tendency to find straight forms too thin or weak. As a result, the Parthenon rests easily on its base, and seems to leap into the sky. Additional devices counteract other optical illusions: column spacing at the corners is reduced; and the triglyphs at the corners are not centered on their supporting columns. What makes the building a clear example of passion, clarity and beauty is not simply tile shape of the elements, but the special relationship between them — the unity between the parts, and between parts and whole.

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① Pythagorean a. of or relating to Pythagoras or his geometry

② Andrea Palladio was born in Padua, Italy in 1508. He worked as an assistant in a Vicenza guild of masons and stone-cutters before he met the amateur architect, Giangiorgio Trissino, who took him under his wing and renamed him Andrea Palladio. After a series of commissions executed in the Classic tradition, Palladio worked with Daniele Barbaro on a new edition of Vitruvius.

③ equilibrium n. a stable situation in which forces cancel one another

④ pediment n. a triangular gable between a horizontal entablature and a sloping roof

⑤ stylobate n. the stylobate is the top step of the platform that supports columns in classical architecture

⑥ plinth n. an architectural support or base (as for a column or statue)

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Exercises

I. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer.

1.

For example, Le Corbusier had adopted this tool (regulating lines) in his architectural work since , and in his paintings since 1919. A. 1911 2. 3.

A. economic

B. 1910 B. social

C. 1920

D. 1918

Traditionally, questions are often questions of large-scale forms or fabrics.

C. political D. urban

With the emergence of outdoor sculpture, sometimes an entire urban area became “ ”; in the best examples a sculpture garden or plaza became seen as a kind of extended interior. A. indicated 4.

B. domesticated

C. urbanized

D. industrialized

In both cases, sculpture-like architecture — a building emerging from the land with clearly defined forms and_______— is transformed into an urban field or a traffic network. A. lands 5.

B. color

C. boundaries

D. sky

By varying relationships within patterns where is expected, otherwise predictable and repetitive patterns may be transformed into great works of art. A. transformation 6.

B. symmetry

C. metaphor

D. asymmetry

A is the expression of an understanding of one concept in terms of another concept, where there is some similarity or correlation between the two. Louis Kahn, who was very skilful in both verbal and architectural expression, described the close relationship between silence and light as “twin brothers”. A. transformation C. metaphor 7.

B. symmetry D. asymmetry

Currently, the word “ ” is used in the design and planning professions to describe an urban environment under constant change and expansion. A. background B. context

C. boundary D. book

8. “ ” means processes which involve altering an internal property of an Object, e.g. the shape of the Object, its coloring, its structure, etc; processes that are not instances of this class include changes that only affect the relationship to other objects, e.g. changes in spatial or temporal location. A. Internal Change C. Transformation

B. External Change D. Deformation

II. Translate the italic sentences in the text into Chinese.