The Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design

by Robert Bork

Overview

The flowering of Gothic architecture depended to a striking extent on the use of drawing as a tool of design. By drawing precise "blueprints" with simple tools such as the compass and straightedge, Gothic draftsmen were able to develop a linearized architecture of unprecedented complexity and sophistication. Examination of their surviving drawings can provide valuable and remarkably intimate information about the Gothic design process. Gothic drawings include compass pricks, uninked construction lines, and other telltale traces of the draftsman's geometrically based working method. The proportions of the drawings, moreover, are those actually intended by the designer, uncompromised by errors introduced in the construction process. All of these features make these drawings ideal subjects for the study of Gothic design practice, but their geometry has to date received little systematic attention. This book offers a new perspective on Gothic architectural creativity. It shows, in a series of rigorous geometrical case studies, how Gothic design evolved over time, in two senses: in the hours of the draftsman's labor, and across the centuries of the late Middle Ages. In each case study, a series of computer graphics show in unprecedented detail how a medieval designer could have developed his architectural concept step by step, using only basic geometrical operations. Taken together, these analyses demonstrate both remarkable methodological continuity across the Gothic era, and the progressive development of new and sophisticated permutations on venerable design themes. This rich tradition ultimately gave way in the Renaissance not because of any inherent problem with Gothic architecture, but because the visual language of Classicism appealed more directly to the pretensions of Humanist princes than the more abstract geometrical order of Gothic design, as the book's final chapter demonstrates.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780754660620
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/12/2011
Edition description:	1
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 11.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Robert Bork is Associate Professor of Art History, University of Iowa, USA.

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction: geometry and the Gothic design process; The origins of Gothic architectural drawing; The flowering of rayonnant drawing in the Rhineland; Italian drawings up to 1350; Germanic tower drawings and the elaboration of tradition; Wider horizons; The Italian Challenge to the Gothic design system; Conclusion: Gothic drawings as traces of the creative process; Bibliography; Index.