Review

Author(s): François Bucher

Review by: François Bucher
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Jun., 1959), pp. 525-526
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/428226
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 REVIEWS

SCHOLFIELD,P. H. The Theory of Proportion in Architecture. Cambridge University Press,

1958,pp. xi + 156, 16 ills., $5.50.
BORISSAVLIEVITCH, M. The Golden Number. New York, 1958. Philosophical Library, pp. 91,
102 ills., $4.75.
Four practical and theoretical factors have produced a renewed interest in the study of
proportions: (1) A great number of architects, stimulated by the Bauhaus theorists and some
architectural historians, have again begun to use a module or some system of proportions
(Perret, Le Havre; Saarinen,General Motors Research Center; Mies Van der Rohe, Seagram
Building; Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture); (2) Le Corbusier'sModulor, which by-
passes the difficulties in an incommensurable proportional system, is becoming an inter-
nationally used tool for architects and has encouraged some to develop their own theories
of proportion; (3) Important developments in "information theory," originally applied to
the field of music, are beginning to explain some of our reactions to repeated or dissimilar
architecturalforms; (4) The history of architecturehas recently been deeply concernedwith
the theories of proportionof the past, especially the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Witt-
kower, Kayser, Conant, Crosby, Velte).
Simultaneously two new books on the theory of proportion have appeared; it is by no
means astonishing that they contradict one another on many points. One deals with the
partially instinctive world of forms streaming from the depths of the creative mind, the
meanings of which have been best interpreted by Klee. Architecturally speaking, this force
creates buildings such as Le Corbusier'sRonchamp or, on a different level, Gaudi's Sagrada
Familia, which cannot be integrated into any rigid system of proportions.
It is of such rarely successful and often uniquely arbitrarystructuresas the two above that
one has to speak if one denies any clearly demonstrable relationship between mathematics
and architecture,as M. Borissavlievitch has done in his study of The Golden Number. The
essay grew out of a lecture given in Paris, and deals with the subjective reality of vision.
According to the author any aesthetic system based on mathematical proportions is made
impossible by the fact that geometric forms transposed into large size, e.g., a fagade con-
structed according to the golden section, can only be perceived as such from an infinite
distance. The author contends that this was the reason why Greek architects based their
highly refined optical correctionsof temple architecture on visual reality and not on mathe-
matical relationships.On the other hand, one might ask the author if those correctionswould
have been introduced at all had the architect not been seriously concernedwith the preserva-
tion of a mathematically pure form which he then adjusted to the observer'simperfect per-
ception.
Borissavlievitch next states that the only thing which really matters in architectureis the
good taste of the builder; however, he then tries to analyze why a rectangle constructed in
conformity with the golden rule appears beautiful. His proposition is that it balances two
unequal asymmetrical parts and-as Pierce has stated it-that it correspondsto the visual
field of both eyes whose optical axes are never parallel. The same form repeated, however,
must not be beautiful if it does not correspondto at least one of the laws of architectural
harmony. The two most important mentioned are: (a) the law of repetition of similar forms
and (b) the law of repetition of the same form. The author suggests that these and other
laws permit us to construct a Greek temple at will after having chosen freely the height of
one column and the intercolumnarspace. However if we use his system of diagonals we might
end up without an entablature. None of Borissavlievitch's purely subjective statements pre-
sents any essentially new factors, and taken together they sweep away the many diverse
principles which architects have incorporated into their buildings for two millennia. Many
barely visible, inaccurate line drawings make it almost impossible to check the author's
statements.
525

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526 REVIEWS

If a few of the very best architects have been able to transcend time-tested architectural
forms with impunity, the majority believed in the capacity of the human eye to be affected
by the purity of a mathematically constructed two- or three-dimensional form. It is with
these mathematical systems of proportion that P. H. Scholfield deals in his important study
on The Theory of Proportion in Architecture.He thinks that the rival systems can be recon-
ciled into a uniform theory of proportion,since in spite of changes within the mathematical
systems of each period the practical use of proportions has differed only on the surface.
Proportions,says Scholfield,serve to create orderthrough a repetition or addition of dominant
shapes accompanied by patterns of mathematical relationships. Thus an addition of shapes
of increasingsize can be in harmony with the Fibonacci series. In his analysis of the theories
of the past, the author, concentrating on direct evidence through literary sources, reviews
the theories based on muscial consonance, the human figure, or numbers, which readapted
to the changing spirit of each period, have produced different visual systems of proportion.
In his excellent chapter on Vitruvius, Scholfield arrives at the conclusion that the rules
of the Roman architect do not correspondwith Neoplatonic theories, but rather produce a
flexible analytical system based on commensurablelinear dimensions. He convincingly ex-
plains the terms proportiones and symmetria used frequently by Vitruvius as size of parts
relative to the whole in the first and relative to a module in the second case. (We still
await an interpretation of eurythmia and commensus.) He finds an equally elegant explana-
tion for the "perfect number"of Vitruvius, interpreting it as any number used as a base for
a system of numeration.
Except for a short analysis of Cennini and Villard de Honnecourt, and the controversy
over the construction of Milan Cathedral, in his chapter on 19th-Centuryhistoricism, Schol-
field neglects the proportional theories of the Middle Ages. He does not make use of the
architectural drawings of the Gothic period, nor of the literary sources such as the 11th
Century "Rules of Farfa," Roriczer's book on the finials, or Hontafon's notes on rib con-
struction.
His study of the Renaissance theories is based on Wittkower's work, and deals with the
efforts of Leonardo,Alberti, Diirer, Barbaro,and Cardanwho tried to find an objective canon
of beauty. In addition to the musical analogy, incommensurablesystems were used, as, for
instance, the square root of two which served Palladio in establishing some of his plans.
The 17th and 18th centuries first began by taking over the Renaissance heritage with Inigo
Jones and Frangois Blondel, but toward the end of the 18th and during the 19th century
most of the leading architects seem to have arrived at the conclusion that proportions were
entirely subjective. In spite of their own reluctance to believe in a system of proportion,
several theoreticians laid the ground-workfor a renewed interest in the theory of proportion.
A. Barca analyzed the repetition of similarshapes, and later in the 19th century Viollet-le-Duc,
who believed that the science of proportionhad been lost, established the differencebetween
proportions based on arithmetic and on geometry.
Through the influence of Wolfflin, Thiersch, and, more recently, Frankl (whom Scholfield
does not mention), proportions began once more to fascinate practicing architects. This
finally resulted in Le Corbusier'sModulor, an analytical system of proportion based on a
continuous, linear (that is measurable) scale which follows the Fibonacci series.
A good bibliography, a few excellent illustrations, and a technical appendix render Schol-
field's book even more usful.
The most disturbing note in both books lies in the disregardfor the third dimension in
which architecture lives and through which proportions affect the observer. We still have
to wait for the book which will give us the last word on proportions. Even if our eye will
always be the final judge in a realm where the absolute cannot be expressed in numbers, we
shall have to remember Alberti's dictum that the use of proportions will achieve harmony
in a building "in such a manner that nothing could be taken away or altered except for the
worse,"and that those who say that "forms of structuresmust not be tied down to any rules
of art" are "the ignorant who despise what they do not understand."
FRANgOISBUCHER

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