This illustrated essay explores specific physical design techniques employed by architects during this golden period of city-building to achieve their remarkable results.
It has just been published by Periodica Polytechnica Architecture (a peer reviewed scientific journal published by the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics).
Urban buildings constructed in historic city centers of Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th Century demonstrate a remarkable consistency of architectural excellence and harmony which can be observed from the large urban forms down to minute details.
The comprehensive system of design principles employed by architects of the time in the creation of these buildings has resulted in urban environments that achieve a very high degree of functionality as well as adaptability to the evolving needs of their modern populations.
(Note: For those who are interested in delving even deeper, Section 3 of the essay focuses on the rediscovery of lost classic architectural design instructional texts and contains a recommended reading list).
Les Concours Publics d'Architecture:
The base drawing I'm working on top of is from a magnificent 16 volume set titled Les Concours Publics d'Architecture. It's a French publication produced at the turn of the last century that compiled the submission drawings of numerous public professional architectural design competitions. The book set is a treasure trove of original 19th Century and early 20th Century architectural drawings - one of the best collections I've ever seen - and well worth the effort to see in person. I particularly like that it includes not only civic buildings, but also a wide variety of beautifully designed fabric buildings.
HathiTrust's copies of Les Concours Publics d'Architecture are scans from a complete set of the books located at the University of Michigan.
HathiTrust used to permit a full online viewing of pdfs of the books, but now unfortunately seems to allow only limited online viewing of search terms. But - to find a library near you with actual print copies, just click on their "Locate a Print Version: Find in a Library" tab. You can enter your address / zip code and it will give you a list of the nearest libraries with a copy in their collection.
(Incidentally, this is not the same publication as the Les Concours d'Architecture de l'Année Scolaire series, which is also a fantastic resource. Les Concours d'Architecture de l'Année Scolaire is an annual publication compiling architectural drawings produced by students at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from the turn of the last century).
Proportional study sketches from master drawings, paintings and built works of architecture are some of the best possible exercises for one's sense of proportion. I try to do them whenever I can.
Simple tools - just a pencil and sketchbook are all that is needed. Here are some examples from my travels:
Proportional study sketch by James Dougherty from the painting Portrait of a Young Man – by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Julien Guadet (1834-1908), the esteemed French architect, theoretician and Professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris writes in his four volume masterwork Éléments et Théorie de l'Architecture: "The sense of proportion is the chief artistic sense. Proportions are infinite and delicate in art and are still more so in nature. How do you recognize a friend among all the people you see, even though you see millions pass? A question of proportions alone. But proportions are so infinite and variable, that among millions of heads no two are exactly alike. Nothing develops a sense of proportion like practice in drawing. To draw is to perceive and then express those specific proportions that distinguish and identify the model. The best draftsman is the most sensitive to proportions."
Proportional study sketch by James Dougherty from the sculpture Theseus Battling the Centaur - by Antoine-Louis Barye in the High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA
During recent trips to historic cities in Europe and America, I have grown increasingly amazed at the level of consistent design proficiency demonstrated in the historic architecture. The astoundingly sensitive attention to architectural proportion and detail is such that these cities (often built as recently as the early 1900s) sometimes appear to have been conceived by a species other than our own!
Vienna, Austria 2007 At the turn of the last century, traditional architecture reached a zenith. The classical art of architectural composition, revived during the Renaissance, was refined through the efforts of many talented architects and through the numerous ateliers and schools of design that orbited the great Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris (1648-1968). The Ecole des Beaux Arts is today often remembered for grand and ornate buildings, but upon closer inspection, its practitioners demonstrated equal proficiency at the design of beautifully proportioned and modest structures with quite reserved details. Great effort was made to teach these principles of architectural composition to new generations of designers in order to keep this noble tradition alive. This period saw the publication of many wonderful texts about the art of architectural composition. These books, which detail the process used to create the astoundingly beautiful architecture of this period, unfortunately fell largely into disuse and were forgotten during the radical cultural shifts and experimentation that occurred during the Modernist era of the early and mid 1900s. Luckily, efforts to digitize our literary heritage, such as the Google Books Library Project, are making these tremendously valuable and useful volumes easily available once again!
One such book worth reading is Architectural Composition by John Beverley Robinson, first published in 1908. The book is subtitled "An Attempt to Order and Phrase Ideas Which Hitherto Have Only Been Felt by the Instinctive Taste of Designers" and attempts to articulate universal principles of architectural composition, regardless of style. Its words are every bit as applicable to the design of urban buildings today as they were during Robinson's own time. Over the next several posts I'll summarize this wonderful book's primary points. Amazon: Architectural Composition (1908, by John Beverley Robinson)
