The beautiful necessity; seven essays on theosophy and architecture . lumn below, as in classic architecture, butwith relation to a mans stature. It may be stated as a general rule that every workof architecture, of whatever style, should have some-where about it something fixed and enduring to relateit to the human figure, if it be only a flight of stepsin which each one is the measure of a stride. In theFarnese, the Riccardi, the Strozzi, and many anotherItalian palace, the stone seat about the base gives scaleto the building because the beholder knows instinctivelythat the height of such a
The beautiful necessity; seven essays on theosophy and architecture . lumn below, as in classic architecture, butwith relation to a mans stature. It may be stated as a general rule that every workof architecture, of whatever style, should have some-where about it something fixed and enduring to relateit to the human figure, if it be only a flight of stepsin which each one is the measure of a stride. In theFarnese, the Riccardi, the Strozzi, and many anotherItalian palace, the stone seat about the base gives scaleto the building because the beholder knows instinctivelythat the height of such a seat must have same relationto the length of a mans leg. In the Pitti palace thebalustrade which crowns each story answers a similarpurpose: it stands in no intimate relation to the gigantic ^g / ^A 11 20191817 K i ^ ^ \ ^S^ .r-J Tpf «>ir> Ihs/ ^ ^v^ .« - — is 14 \ .^ / — IS 12 \. ^ 11 _ 1038 7 A 8 «?/ \r \ J V. c *\ >5452 1 1 \ / !(*• I LA TRKBfOEJE roVID BD ACCOEDIN6TDTH. EXSYPTIAN CANON S8 THE BEAUTIFUL NECESSITY IV TIE :^aDT%TffiHEK3Hr. THE MEDIAEVAL METHCDa? DRiAWINQ THE JlQfOEB arches below, but is of a height convenient for lounging elbows. The door to Giottos cam-panile reveals the true size of the tower as nothing else could, because it is so evidently related to the human figure and not to the great windows higher up in the shaft. The geometrical plane figures which play the most important part in architectural proportion are the square, the circle and the triangle; and the human figure is intimately related to these elementary forms. If a man stand with heels together, and arms out-stretched horizontally in opposite directions, he will be inscribed, as it were, within a square, and his arms will mark, with fair accuracy, the base of an inverted equilateral triangle, the apex of which will touch the ground at his feet. If the arms be extended upward at an angle, and the legs correspondingly separated, the extremities will touch the circumfere
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksub, booksubjectarchitecture
