Prologue to Proportionality in Architecture

Terrance Galvin

As an architect engaged in proportionality, Terrance's CROP offering discussed the loss of proportionality through the concepts of space as 'empty,' as opposed to a relation between the elements, and the analogies of harmony and sensation, through the work of French theorist Nicolas Le Camus de Mzires in the 18th century, leading up to a vote on the very use of proportional systems in architecture in the mid 20th century. The time devoted to these discussions on ratio, proportion, and analogy was apportioned accordingly. Reciprocity, twin phenomena, and complementarity remain at the heart of the matter.

Bibliography

• *Giedion, Sigfried. Space, Time, and Architecture: the growth of a new tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954 (3rd edition).
• *Wittkower, Rudolph. The Changing Concept of Proportion. Daedalus (Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences). Vol. 89, 1960. pp. 199-215.
• Zevi, Bruno. Architecture as Space, how to look at Architecture. Edited Joseph Barry. New York: Horizon Press, 1957.

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