Colin Rowe’s essay on The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa was first published in the Architectural Review in 1947. Rowe was an architectural historian and critic. Within this particular essay he compares the works of Palladio and Le Corbusier.
Colin Rowe begins his essay with a quote from Sir Christopher Wren about the idea of beauty being either natural or customary where; natural beauty is from geometry consisting of uniformity, equality and proportion, and customary beauty is down to familiarity to something, which is not in itself lovely. Wren describes geometrical figures as being ‘naturally more beautiful than irregular ones’ as well as perpendicular and horizontal as being the ‘only two beautiful positions of straight lines’.
Rowe makes a ‘diagrammatical comparison’ between Palladio’s 'Villa Foscari' (the Malcontenta), dating from the 16th Century, and Corbusier's 'Villa Garches', dating from the 1920s. He describes what he believes to be 'fundamental relationships' between the two. These include firstly comparisons with the geometric ratios and then a comparison of the structures, plan and so on.
He talks of a lot of mathematical 'coincidences' and some would argue that he is in fact distorting information to create evidence for his argument by plucking these thoughts out of the air.
Rowe goes on to say; ‘Development was, therefore, less a matter of innovation, than an extension of ideas already implicit.’ This implies that in architecture, we have been regurgitating the same ideas for decades in one way or the other. This is certainly true to a certain sense, I don't believe any form of 'design' is truly 'unique' as I believe everything we do has got to be influenced by our own experiences within society and our acquired knowledge and understanding of the world.
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