I’ve long had an interest in Renaissance architecture, beginning, I think, when I was in fifth grade and learning about world history. Andrea Palladio’s influence is still strong in, especially in regards to the visual image of American government. This influence trickles down to smaller public buildings and housing as well. I’ve also been curious about his philosophies of architecture and techniques for creating proportion and balance in his overall designs.
I’ve completed the first book, which focuses on period materials and techniques for building, which is not terribly useful unless one is focused on architectural history. Palladio also details the characteristic features of the “Five Orders” of architecture, Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite, plus designing structures such as ceilings, windows, doors, and stairs.
He includes some interesting thoughts on design and architecture that are still applicable and important, although often forgotten during the design process.
That work cannot be called perfect, which should be useful and not durable, or durable and not useful, or having both these should be without beauty.
Herein, perhaps, lies the difference between “building” and “architecture,” something which may be lacking in contemporary practice. Durability, Usefulness, and Beauty must all be accounted for in the design. A building that is Durable and Useful but not Beautiful, likely the most common sort of building found today, is lacking in architecture and does nothing more than serve a purpose, e.g. a storage shed. A building that is Durable and Beautiful but not Useful is, well, is it a building? Would this be better described as, say, a sculpture or a monument? A building that is Useful and Beautiful but not Durable simply isn’t properly engineered, and therefore not properly designed. But if only one of these points is in place, let alone none of them, it could hardly be in description of a building at all. Beauty, however, is the point that most resists description, but Palladio aims to define it.
…the structure may appear an entire and complete body, wherein each member agrees with the other, and all necessary to compose what you intend to form.
Palladio makes it clear that his architectural philosophy revolves around this point. It is very important to him that all aspects of the design reflect each other consistently and in balance. He is thinking of architectural design as a production of a single “Fabrick,” much the way in which a composer thinks of his craft as the production of a single piece. The alternative is a collection of forms clumsily bound together.
I say therefore, that architecture, as well as all other arts, being an imitation of nature, can suffer nothing that either alienates or deviates from that which is agreeable to nature; from when we see, that the ancient architects, who made their edifices of wood, when they began to make them of stone, instituted that the columns should be left thicker at the bottom than at the top, taking example from the trees, all which are thinner at the top than in the trunk, or near the root.
I just found the comparison between architecture and nature interesting. Mankind’s contemporary built environment, the city in particular, is the nature that we have created for ourselves, and I would extend this notion to design in general and into industry. For Palladio, it is important for architecture, and art, to imitate nature. Over the centuries since Palladio architects have pushed this notion to designing nature for mankind.
…that the void may be over the void, and the solid upon the solid, and all face one another, so that standing at one end of the house one may see to the other, which affords both beauty and cool air in summer, besides other conveniences.
An interesting goal left unattended by most architects. It seems that Palladio aimed, at very least, to define a single space within a design, and to not lose the sense of that overall space when dividing it into separate rooms. His floor plans suggest this, given their sense of traffic flow, the fact that the facade tends to define the rooms found within, and the sensation of an endless series of rooms.
