Classical Architecture: The Poetics of Order - Softcover

Tzonis, Alexander; Lefaivre, Liane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 026270031X ISBN 13: 9780262700313

Publisher: MIT Press, 1986

Synopsis

This fascinating introduction to classical art and architecture is the first book to investigate the way classical buildings are put together as formal structures. It researches the generative rules, the poetics of composition that classical architecture shares with classical music, poetry, and drama, and is enriched by a variety of examples and an extensive analysis of compositional rules. The 205 line drawings make up a discourse of their own, a pictorial text that serves as an introductory theory of composition or basic design aid.

Drawing from Vitruvius, the poetics of Aristotle, the theories of classical architecture, music, and poetry since the Renaissance, and the poetics of the Russian formalists, the authors present classical architecture as a coherent system of architectural thinking that is capable of producing a tragic humanistic discourse, a public art with critical, moral, and philosophical meaning.

About this title

About the Author:

Alexander Tzonis taught at Harvard from 1967 to 1981 and is the author of several books on architecture and design.

Liane Lefaivre is Professor and Chair of History and Theory of Architecture, University of Applied Art, Vienna, and Research Associate at the Technical University of Delft.

Review:

An essential work for anyone wrestling with the provocative questions of the validity of the classical tradition in Western architecture. This is a penetrating, superior, and original contribution to the recent literature.

―Helen Searing, Alice Pratt Brown Professor of Art, Smith College

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 026270031X
• ISBN 13: 9780262700313
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 306