Beauty Memory Unity: A Theory of Proportion in Architecture

The author invites us on a journey (with compass and ruler in hand) beginning at the dawn of civilisation, a search for beauty through number, geometry, and harmony. He takes on the subject in a manner that maintains its mystery yet feels comprehensible and completely human.

Great review of use of proportion, great examples and how to apply to projects.

For centuries architects have striven to find meaning in the rather prosaic task of designing and constructing buildings. The Renaissance saw a huge upsurge in this interest which saw its final gasp with W. R. Lethaby's "Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth" at the beginning of the twentieth century. Modernist apologists of all sorts, including Frank Lloyd Wright, tried their hand at it, as well, but in reaction to what they perceived to be the dead hand of slavish imitation.With the decreased interest in Modernism in architecture (as in other fields) has come an increased interest in historicism. In architecture a new generation of neo-neo-neo-neo Classicists, or, more easily defined, contemporary Classicists, has developed. Most are quite content to revive motifs from historic architecture and use them with varying degrees of verisimilitude on new buildings reflecting contemporary needs and lifestyles. None have yet recreated ancient Greek temples with absolute precision to be used by contemporary society.What this movement has lacked thus far is an apologist who can explain all the hidden and esoteric meanings that provide an almost-divine imprimatur for Classical architecture. In short, the search for the divine, infallible Truth concerning architecture has now been resumed by Steve Bass. It is a search which began with the rediscovery of Vitruvius in the Renaissance which led to the archeological examination of the surviving structures (not unlike the search for the original inspired scriptures of the Bible) but which ended up with great contradictions in the archaeological record which could not be harmonized, leading to various proponents of the Five Order of Classical Architecture asserting their various versions of the TruthThis book is a curious mashup of architectural history (only Western unlike Lethaby's tome and focused on Classical architecture with brief coverage of Islamic, Romanesque, and Gothic) and mysticism. Mr. Bass has done his homework and in the heady brew of the book has supplied an overview of the findings of other Classicists intermingled with mystical strands ranging from snippets of the Bible to Freemasonry.If one is inclined to an interest in arcane postulations and theories in architecture, then this is a really great book. Even more interesting, in my opinion, is Lethaby's book. On the other hand, if one is of a pragmatic turn of mind, then most of this book reads as silly twaddle.

Steve Bass has produced an important work based on long years of study that assesses the classical architectural tradition in relation to a magico-mystic belief system he dates back to Imhotep, the architect of Djoser's Stepped Pyramid. As regards the chain of continuity within that tradition--mainly associated with the Pythagoreans, Orphics, and Plato's Timaeus--Bass detects what might strike many as improbable links, such as the Knights Templar, or, at the chain's end, Thomas Jefferson. Yet in his many impressive drawings he deploys mystic, ontological concepts of the power of number to shed valuable light on the nature of architectural proportion, whether in the form of geometric "trans-rational" ratios--especially the Golden Proportion--or harmonic ratios involving small whole numbers, or arithmetic matrices that were quite possibly used by the likes of Vitruvius to translate essentially qualitative geometric and harmonic systems into quantitative specifications workmen could use at the building site. Bass's own mystic convictions also fuel stimulating discussion of architectural and artistic developments and broader cultural trends over the course of Western civilization. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Enlightenment comes in for harsh scrutiny. It is worth noting that this is a theoretical opus. Bass is, on the whole, careful not to overstate his case. Even classicists of an unmystical bent will benefit from reading this book.

Steve Bass has produced a masterwork on the classical cannon. This painstaking exploration of the orders, proportion, harmony and beauty in architecture is a rich source for designers and scholars alike.