Every age and every culture has relied on the incorporation of mathematics in their works of architecture to imbue the built environment with meaning and order. Mathematics is also central to the production of architecture, to its methods of measurement, fabrication and analysis. This two-volume edited collection presents a detailed portrait of the ways in which two seemingly different disciplines are interconnected. Over almost 100 chapters it illustrates and examines the relationship between architecture and mathematics. Contributors of these chapters come from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds: architects, mathematicians, historians, theoreticians, scientists and educators. Through this work, architecture may be seen and understood in a new light, by professionals as well as non-professionals.
Volume II covers architecture from the Late Renaissance era, through Baroque, Ottoman, Enlightenment, Modern and contemporary styles and approaches. Key figures covered in this volume include Palladio, Michelangelo, Borromini, Sinan, Wren, Wright, Le Corbusier, Breuer, Niemeyer and Kahn. Mathematical themes which are considered include linear algebra, tiling and fractals and the geographic span of the volume's content includes works in the United States of America and Australia, in addition to those in Europe and Asia.
The aim of this collection of essays is to present a broad portrait of the ways in which two seemingly different disciplines are interconnected. The diversity and varied texture of the essays richly illustrates the affinity between architecture and mathematics. As the almost 100 papers presented in this two-volume publication show, every age and every culture has relied on principles of mathematics incorporated in their works of architecture to imbue their built environment with meaning and order. Included are discussions of geometry, proportional systems, linear algebra, periodic and aperiodic tilings, fractals, perspective, computer science and mechanics. Western architecture of every period is examined: Egyptian, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment, twentieth-century and beyond, as is the architecture of Turkey, China, India, Japan, Australia and Islam. The mathematical nature of the architecture of Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio and Frank Lloyd Wright is examined, and the philosophical background behind Renaissance architecture is explored. Contributors come from a wide range of disciplines and cultural backgrounds: architects, mathematicians, historians, theoreticians, scientists and educators from the world over. Architecture may be seen and understood in a new light, by professionals as well as non-professionals.
"It presents several alternative historical and theoretical contexts of the relationship between architecture and mathematics which has been pushed to the foreground during the past decades with the increasing use of computer-aided design in their profession ? . Historians of mathematics, too, will no doubt find useful material here for their research, especially if they are interested in the more practical concerns that have shaped the development of their field ? ." (Yelda Nasifoglu, BSHM Bulletin, Vol. 31 (3), October, 2016)
