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GEOMETRY CONCEPTS IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

Article · August 2006

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Cornelie Leopold
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12TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GEOMETRY AND GRAPHICS ©2006 ISGG
6-10 AUGUST, 2006, SALVADOR, BRAZIL

GEOMETRY CONCEPTS IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

Cornelie LEOPOLD
University of Kaiserslautern, Germany

ABSTRACT: The relationship between geometry and architectural design are described and dis-
cussed along some examples. Geometry is the fundamental science of forms and their order. Geo-
metric figures, forms and transformations build the material of architectural design. In the history of
architecture geometric rules based on the ideas of proportions and symmetries formed fixed tools
for architectural design. Proportions were analyzed in nature and found as general aesthetic catego-
ries across nature and art. Therefore proportions such as the golden section were seen as the power
to create harmony in architecture as well as in art and music. According Pythagoras there were gen-
eral principles for harmony. They were also applied in architecture and they found a further devel-
opment especially in the renaissance. Leon Battista Alberti integrated such general harmonic pro-
portion rules in his theory of architecture and realized them in his buildings. To find general princi-
ples of harmony in the world were the main research aims of Johannes Kepler in his “Harmonice
mundi”. These principles of harmony were based on geometry. Another important branch in the
history of architectural design principles was the “golden section” or “divina proportione”. “Modu-
lor” of Le Corbusier is an example of an architectural design and formation concept based on the
golden section. The concept of symmetry is combined with the idea of harmony and proportion.
Symmetry operations are concerned with motions of figures and shapes. Geometry can be seen also
as a structural science. The architectural design is based on geometric structures developed out of
the idea of transformations. The symmetry transformations are visible as design concepts through
history of architecture. In contemporary architecture there are no fixed rules about design concepts.
But there are still relations to geometric space concepts. There is a need of new geometric back-
ground for architectural design. Examples of architecture and designing will be presented and dis-
cussed in their relationship to geometry. The role of geometry in architectural design processes will
be analyzed exemplarily through history of architecture and new fruitful approaches show actual
and future perspectives.

Keywords: Geometric structures, harmony, proportions, architectural design.

Paper #T35
1. INTRODUCTION
As the fundamental science of forms and their
order geometry contributes to the process of
composition and designing in architecture.
Composition in architecture starts with ele-
ments and their relations. Geometry is able to Figure 2: Max Bill, 1935-1938, Variations
make a contribution to this process by dealing
with geometric figures and forms as elements Max Bill thought about the relationship be-
as well as proportions, angles and transforma- tween structures and art. In his opinion rhyth-
tions as relations between them. Structures mical order as the creative act of the artist pro-
build the foundation of composing. Structures duces an artwork starting with a general struc-
indicate general systems of order in various ture. Through history of geometry and archi-
scientific disciplines, derived from the Latin tecture there were developed some rules based
notion “structura” which means join together in on geometry which formed the basis for archi-
order. Mathematics can be seen as a general tectural composition. In the following we will
science of structures by considering systems of analyze the role of geometry in the architectural
elements and their relations or operations. This design processes through several examples
concept is for example the background for the along history of architecture.
innovative approach to composition of Richard
Buckminster Fuller. "Mathematics is the sci- 2. HARMONY AS A PRINCIPLE OF
ence of structure and pattern in general." [7] COMPOSITION
The notion of harmony is seen as a fundamental
principle of composition in history of architec-
ture. Composition is based on harmony and or-
der as aesthetic categories. The understanding
of harmony is based on the mythological person
“Harmonia”, the goddess of harmony, who was
seen as the daughter of Ares, the god of war,
and Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.
Harmonia is the symbol of the union of antago-
nisms. Harmony means the connection of dif-
ferent or opposed things to an arranged whole.
The antiquity science itself is conducted by
Figure 1: R. B. Fuller with models, 1949 principles of harmony and order.

2.1 Pythagoras
In his research he developed for example a sys-
In the Pythagorean approach all occurrences are
tematic way to subdivide the sphere. His struc-
seen under a general principle. This principle
tural thinking, starting with the Platonic Solids,
wants to be a principle of composition by un-
led to the geodesic grids and finally his built
derstanding all processes in mathematical or-
geodesic domes. Geometry can be seen as the
ders. Arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and mu-
science to describe structures. Max Bill works
sic, the sciences of Quadrivium are all based on
in his art with geometric structures as processes,
this general principle. Pythagoras was con-
for example in his variations about a single
vinced that harmony, all things and principles
theme, the process from triangle to octagon.
of being can be grasped by integers and
With his variations he clarified his methods for
mathematical regularities. He discovered that
generating artworks.
2
the music intervals form simple relations ac- Therefore also creation and design is based on
cording the division of the string and the num- the geometric world concept.
ber of oscillations. The Tetraktys: numbers 1 to
4 (4 elements, 4 cardinal points) form the 2.4 Golden Section
foundation according Pythagoras. The idea of Such a fundamental principle of harmony de-
harmonic proportions is a general principle for rived from nature, applied in art, architecture
all sciences and applications. and music can be seen in the golden section.
The idea of the golden section shows the co-
2.2 Alberti herence of composition and geometry. This
In reference to this antique understanding of idea steps longtime through history of architec-
harmony as the union of antagonisms Leon ture. Hippasos of Metapont (450 B.C.) found it
Battista Alberti (1404-1472) developed his in his research about the pentagon and the rela-
principles of architecture. “De Re Aedificato- tion of its edge length and the diagonal. Euclid
ria” [1] is subdivided into ten books and de- (325-270 B.C.) was the first who described the
scribes how to achieve harmony in architecture. golden section precisely also as a continuous
Beauty was for Alberti "the harmony of all division. In the following time golden section
parts in relation to one another," and subse- was seen as the ideal proportion and the epit-
quently based on the Pythagorean ideas "this ome of esthetics and harmony. Especially in the
concord is realized in a particular number, renaissance, harmonic proportions were based
proportion, and arrangement demanded by on the geometric relations according the golden
harmony". Alberti’s ideas remained the classic section in art, architecture as well as in music.
treatise on architecture from the sixteenth until Filippo Brunelleschi built Santa Maria del Fiore
the eighteenth century and even longer. in Florence 1296 based on the golden section
and the Fibonacci numbers.
2.3 Kepler The “Modulor” of Le Corbusier [5] is an ex-
Harmony as a concept for all sciences and the ample of an architectonic concept of designing
whole world is also expressed in Johannes Ke- and creating according geometric rules in mod-
pler‘s “Harmonices mundi”. Johannes Kepler ern architecture, but it remains bound to the
(1571-1630) well known as scientist, astrono- classical conception of harmony.
mer and mathematician based his harmony
concept on geometry, especially the Platonic
Solids. He was a Pythagorean mystic and con-
sidered mathematical relationships to be the
fundament of all nature and creations. Geomet-
rical concepts are in his theory the fundament
of nature and science as well as art and music.

Figure 4: “Jeux de panneaux” and “Unité

d’Habitation”, Le Corbusier

The structuring of the windows in Unité

d’Habitation, Marseille, 1947 (Figure 4) shows
various kinds of formations by maintaining the
same structure principle subdividing according
the golden section. A structural equivalence
between music and architecture is obvious in
Figure 3: Kepler’s “Harmonices mundi”
3
“Ondulatoires” in the music composition “Me- Figure 5 shows a student work (Markus Weis-
tastasis” by Xenakis and the façade of “La senmayer) of creating patterns by congruence
Tourette” by Le Corbusier/Xenakis 1952 [11] . transformations. The students had to choose a
In his book “Architektur und Harmonie” Paul v. start element and to develop a sequence of con-
Naredi-Rainer [13] characterizes the relation gruence transformations in a storyboard. Then
between architecture and geometry: geometry the same storyboard is applied to another start
has an important role for architecture in the element. This simple task tries to achieve an
process of form finding and form development understanding of structural thinking.
without determining architecture exclusively. The process of congruence transformations can
be expressed in a clear way by the operations of
3. SYMMETRY AND TRANSFORMA- folding and cutting. Folding gets more and
TIONS more important for creating processes in archi-
Another fundamental notion in the history of tecture as well as in industry. A study about the
architecture is the concept of symmetry closely geometric symmetry conditions of folding by a
connected with the idea of harmony. “Symme- student of architecture (Eric Pigat) [12] and an
try”, derived from the Greek “syn” which example of industrial origami [17] are shown in
means together and “metron” which means Figure 6. The mathematical comprehension of
measure, is understood as the harmony between symmetry as transformation processes only
the parts of an object and the way of the com- starts nowadays to influence the creating proc-
bination of several parts. Vitruv [15] described esses in architecture.
in this comprehension “Symmetria” as an im-
portant category of architecture. In this early
understanding, symmetry describes the combi-
nation of the parts in a general way not in the
mathematical meaning.
The mathematical symmetry concept of today
was developed in the context of crystallography.
Figure 6: Folding study and industrial origami
Only in the middle of the 19th century mathe-
maticians became interested in the concept of 4. GEOMETRIC AND ARCHITECTURAL
symmetry. Later by introducing the concept of SPACE CONCEPTS
transformation in mathematics the concept of The architectural space is based on a geometric
symmetry was changed and expanded. The space concept. Especially in the creation proc-
“Erlangen Programme”, 1872, by Felix Klein ess architecture is thought in relation to a geo-
introduces geometry as the discipline of the in- metric space. Robin Evans [6] analyzes the re-
variants of transformation groups. Symmetry lationship between geometry and architecture:
now is understood as the invariance under a “The first place anyone looks to find the ge-
certain kind of transformation [14]. ometry in architecture is in the shape of build-
ings, then perhaps the shape of the drawings of
the buildings. These are the locations where
geometry has been, on the whole, stolid and
dormant. But geometry has been active in the
space between and the space at either end.” [6,
p.xxxi].
Figure 5: Two ornaments based on the same According Evans, in history of architecture you
sequence of congruence transformations find this misunderstanding of the role of ge-
ometry. In his historical study he refers to the
4
relations between Gaspard Monge’s Descrip- At the same time the mathematicians were able
tive Geometry and Jean-Nicolas Louis Du- to create curves and curved surfaces with the
rand’s theory of architecture. Durand taught help of the coordinate system.
architecture at l’École Polytechnique in Paris at “… while descriptive geometry encouraged the
the same time as Monge around 1800. Durand free orientation of forms in relation to one an-
developed an universal planning grid for archi- other, Durand’s orthographic projection was
tecture. Evans describes that Durand’s grid ar- used to enforce the frontal and rectilinear. So
chitecture (Figure 7) is based on the misunder- whatever the defects in Durand’s teaching,
standing of the spatial coordinate system. In- Monge’s geometry can hardly be held to ac-
stead of understanding the coordinate system in count for them.” [6, p.327]. Also today you find
an abstract way, he transformed the coordinate this misunderstanding on the role of geometry
planes directly in architecture as floor and in architecture if the strong forms are equated
walls. with geometry and the organic forms are seen
in contrary to geometry. Evans states in his
book appropriately: “When architects attempt
to escape from the tyranny of geometry, mean-
ing by the tyranny of the box, where can they
escape to? Either they must give up geometry
altogether (which would be exceptionally dif-
ficult), or they escape to another, always more
complex and demanding geometry, or they do
the last while giving the impression of having
done the first, …” [6, p.331].
It is not the challenge of geometry to provide a
catalogue of eidetic forms for architecture.
Figure 7: Durand’s grid architecture, courtyards Geometry rather provides the geometrical un-
derstanding of space as a background for archi-
tecture. Whereas the Euclidean geometry has its
roots in measurements and therefore corre-
sponds with the tactile space, the projective
geometry corresponds with the visual space and
refers to the perception. Evans pleads in in-
volving projective geometry in architecture. He
states that the indication of the two different
kinds of geometry “enable us to see why archi-
tectural composition is such a peculiar enter-
prise: a metric organization judged optically, it
mixes one kind of geometry with the other kind
of assessment. Perhaps this is reason enough
for the confusion surrounding it.“ [6, p.xxxiii]
The development of projective geometry got its
impetus from architectural demands. The ar-
chitect Brunellschi developed constructive
principles for perspectives by using geometrical
projection methods. Alberti summarized the
Figure 8: Intersection of two cones by Monge results of the research in perspective to a
5
teaching concept. Projective geometry origi- with this route or doorway between mental and
nated from generalizing the use of vanishing real.” [6, p.354].
points and constructing perspective drawings. Such interactions between the described fields
Now according Evans there could be new im- will be illustrated by some examples. Perspec-
pulses for architectural design by looking for tive for example affects back to the designed
the relationship between projection and archi- object. The classical example of an arcaded
tecture itself. The projections are operating courtyard in “Palazzo Spada” in Rome, de-
between things and are seen as transitive rela- signed by Francesco Borromini 1635 (Figure
tions. The diagram in Figure 9 shows four types 10), is an architectural trompe-l'œil in which
of targets: designed object, orthographic pro- diminishing rows of columns and a rising floor
jection, perspective and imagination combined create the optical illusion of a long gallery.
with the perception of an observer. The dia-
gram is thought by Evans as a tetrahedron, so
that the center disappears and all relations are
equitable. The routes between the targets can be
traveled in either direction.

Figure 10: Arcaded courtyard of “Palazzo

Spada”, Rome, F. Borromini 1635 [18]

An actual example can be seen in the building

“Phaeno Science Center” in Wolfsburg, Ger-
many, built by Zaha Hadid in 2005 (Figure 11).
An interacting between perspective and de-
signed object can be often noticed in Zaha
Hadid’s work.
Figure 9: Diagram of projective transactions

The diagram of Evans can be interpreted as the

sign model of the architectural design processes.
Geometry is located in the mind, architecture in
perceptible materialized reality. The diagram
classifies the sign relations between the de-
signed architectural object, the imagination and
the drawings. “Between geometry and archi-
tecture we have somehow hopped from inside
the mind to outside. So when dealing with ar- Figure 11: Phaeno Science Center, Wolfsburg,
chitectural geometry, we seem to be dealing Germany, built by Zaha Hadid, 2005 [19]
6
Preston Scott Cohen [4] works in his architec- Another example for such a doorway between
tural design projects directly with the method of mental and real may be seen in some works of
projection. He studied along historical exam- Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos when they
ples that according principles of harmony apply topological thinking to architecture. In
symmetrical designed buildings get distorted by “Move 1” they write: “Blob or box - it doesn't
perspective projections in order to create a vis- matter anymore. (...) Do you like boxes? No
ual reality. Cohen develops a method using a problem, nowadays your shoes can be packed
“perspective apparatus” in the designing proc- in a box or a bag; you can put the box in the
ess. “The process of projection is reversible; bag too - it's up to you.” [2, p.221]. The transfer
perspectives may serve as objects and vice from box to blob may be realized by topologi-
versa.” [16]. He starts for example with a per- cal symmetry where the connectedness of an
spective drawing of an object. This perspective object remains. In the Moebius house for ex-
is then assumed to be an orthographic projec- ample the idea of the Moebius band leads the
tion from which other views are later derived to design process, not in a figurative but in a con-
produce a third dimension and finally to create ceptualized sense, as they write in Move 2:
the object. “The mathematical model of the Moebius band
is not literally transferred to the building, but is
conceptualised or thematised and can be found
in architectural ingredients, such as the light,
the staircase and the way in which people move
through the house.” [2, p.43].

Figure 13: Moebius band concept

Figure 12: Patterns for Head Start Facilities,

drawing and model, Cohen, 1994 [16] Figure 14: Moebius house, Berkel, 1993-98

Cohen uses the method of perspective projec- The examples show various ways to refer to
tion to create architecture. His ideas can be lo- geometry in the architectural processes also in
cated in Evans diagram (Figure 9) between the present time. It seems that there exists a fruitful
fields 3, 4 and 5. It is an interesting new exam- relationship between geometry and architecture
ple of architectural design where geometry in the past as well as today although the role of
leads the design process according the idea of geometry is sometimes only seen as a past his-
projection. torical one. It takes some time until geometric
7
new developments are picked up by architec- REFERENCES
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Perhaps a new powerful relationship of geome-
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5. CONCLUSIONS Connaissance, Brüssel, 1967.
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8
 [14] Scriba, Christoph J., Peter Schreiber: 5000
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[16] www.appendx.org/issue3/cohen/index.htm
[17] www.industrialorigami.com
[18] www.wikipedia.org
[19] www.wolfsburg-citytour.de/Museen/Phaen
o_Museum_1/phaeno_museum_1.html

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cornelie Leopold studied Mathematics and
Philosophy. She is a lecturer and head of the
section Descriptive Geometry and Perspective
in the Department of Architecture, Regional
and Environmental Planning, Civil Engineering,
University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Her re-
search interests are: descriptive geometry and
new media, geometrical space conceptions and
architecture, visualization of architecture, de-
velopment of spatial visualization abilities,
geometry and architectural design. She can be
reached by e-mail: [email protected], by
phone: +49-631-205-2941, by fax:
+49-631-205-4510, or through postal address:
University of Kaiserslautern / P.O. Box 3049 /
D-67653 Kaiserslautern / Germany. Website:
http://www.uni-kl.de/AG-Leopold

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