Compass & Rule: Architecture as Mathematical Practice in England

 

Compass & Rule: Architecture as Mathematical Practice in England

Anthony Gerbino & Stephen Johnston

Yale University Press, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-300-15093-3

(Amazon)

Read by the author in 2024, purchased for $16.75

"Son of Man, take a brick and lay it before you and trace upon it a city, namely, Jerusalem, and lay siege against it, and build a siege wall against it." (Ezekiel 4:1)

In the course of a prophecy about the siege of Jerusalem, Ezekiel is instructed to build a makeshift model of the city as a way of physically demonstrating what will happen. The way cities are represented in drawing, "chorography," specifically as a military tool, is one of the many interesting topics covered in this book about how technical drawings transformed architecture as Europe emerged from the Middle Ages. 

This book, produced to accompany an exhibit by the same name at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, has so much to love. It is firstly a beautiful and well-curated book, filled with objects and drawings that artfully illustrate the subjects under discussion. The sketches and drawings had me flipping back and forth to re-examine them after reading the text, and re-reading the text after studying the illustrations. Many similar books have either strong images or a strong essay, but this book has both. 

I am very interested in the history and evolution of my profession. It is a topic I write about in ArchitecTorah and one addressed by the authors of this book via examples of architectural plans and drafting tools. This book relates well with topics I discuss in a paper on Mishnah Middot and the way buildings were designed in antiquity. I wish I had a stronger understanding of how the tools depicted were used, but mostly the explanations were beyond my grasp. Perhaps somewhere on youtube there are videos that show how to use the outdated drafting equipment. (While I learned to draft by hand, I never had to prepare axonometrics of the different orders, so perhaps I just lack the experience to grasp the task.) The book focuses primarily on the profession in England, but mentions continental practices as well. It brings all the lessons together in a final chapter that discusses how Christopher Wren designed St. Paul's Cathedral in London, in a manner similar to Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome. Again, many of the specifics elude me, but perhaps my next book, John Fitchen's The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals, will compliment this one.