Vitruvius on Architecture by Thomas Gordon Smith

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Dust jacket is in good condition with small tears to the top right corners. Interior and binding are still very good.

In about 25 B.C., the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio presented to the emperor Augustus 10 scrolls that contained everything he knew about architecture. Synthesising his studies of earlier Greek writings as well as lessons drawn from his own design career, the Ten Books on Architecture discussed architectural practice and education; building materials; the correct proportions and elements of the Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian orders; the design of temples, public buildings, and private houses; and engineering and military planning.

More than 2,000 years later, his masterwork stands as both the most comprehensive architectural text of antiquity and one of the most important design treatises ever written.

In addition to 3 of the most recognised ideals of architectural design - firmitas, utilitas, and venustas, or strength, function, and beauty - Vitruvius defined 6 principles that continue to resonate: ordinatio and symmetria, or modules and their relationships within and as a whole; dispositio, design and representation of buildings; eurythmia, thoughtful modification of rules; decor, selection of appropriate architectural elements and configurations; and distributio, organisational skills needed in building. Vitruvius also explained how invention, or "lively mental energy," is required to unite the theoretical and the practical aspects of these principles.

Just as Vitruvius set out to catalogue the rules and ideals of ancient Greek architecture, Thomas Gordon Smith, in Vitruvius on Architecture, presents Vitruvius's own rules and ideals. This volume contains the 5 books most relevant to contemporary architecture along with a wealth of visual material: photographs of ancient structures from Greece, Italy, and Turkey; related sculptures, frescoes, and reliefs; hypothetical re-creations of Vitruvius's now-lost illustrations; and a series of exquisitely rendered watercolour plates based on his descriptions. Vitruvius on Architecture is an exceptional accomplishment: a study as relevant to the present as Vitruvius's was to his own day (and to architecture since) and a remarkable twenty-first-century embodiment of "lively mental energy."