golden ratio in irish architecture

What, you mean the Golden Section?

.667 or whatever it is? It’s a very interesting subject indeed. Basically
it’s ratio/composition/ordering system
that comes completely naturally to
everybody – very hard to consciously
resist.

Anna Karenina
All chapters numbered until 2 thirds through
the chapter is called ‘Death’.

Even the presenters on TV always have their eyes placed 2 thirds the way up on screen no matter how wide the shot.
BBC Radio 4 did a fascinating programme about it 2 years ago.
John

It can be calculated on the principle that the ratio of 13:8 is the same as 21:8, (13+8=21). For example, if you draw a picture that is 21 cm wide, the central focus of the picture should be 13 cm from the left. It has been used in buildings, but I can’t think of any examples in Ireland.

I was doing a little research on the history of Berlin’s column of victory (Siegessäule) and I cam across this nicely lay explanation of the Golden Section in architecture for all who might find it useful:
http://www.ewersarchitecture.com/goldensection.html

…sorry, Lila, never been to Ireland,

cheers…

Wow! You learn something new every day.
I always thought the ratio for the Golden Section had something to do with the square root of two and that it was also connected with the relative dimesions of A0 vs A1 sheets of paper etc.
Lila: Would it be a usefull exersize for your students to take examples of modern and georgian architecture in Ireland and try to apply the Golden Section priciple to the proportions of the elevations and then review whether or not it has been used in Irish Architecture at all?

Wouldn’t it be interesting to try exercises involving seemingly random actions like arranging things/people/words etc and seeing how they fall in the proportional sense? Do people conform to the golden section without knowing it? Is it a universal pattern that everything comfortably falls into? Might explain why we find it attractive.

Isnt there a relationship between the human proportion and the Golden Section?
It is also vital for harmonics in music. Almost all harmonics obey this 2 thirds rule.
It also has a solid foundations in mathamatics (fibonacci sequence, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,etc.).
Copositionally, it is and has been used in art and architecture for centuries.
This can be interesting for your students to see the links between art, music and mathamatics.

Is’nt it exciting and profound all this – the Golden Section and The Canon Laws that governed classical antiquity and beauty….. alas now all forgotton and absent to a considerate degree in most practices.

….according to the Canon Laws does’nt the height of a persons head equate to 7 or 8 parts the same size to the overall persons height. Also does’nt the span from fingertip to fingertip of each arm outstretched equal the persons height……See Leonardo’s drawing’s of the human body’s proportions. Everything is composed of the science of numbers – the building blocks of life and all we see around us.

Lila

Rob Krier published an architectural textbook some years ago called Architectural Composition (Acadamy Editions) which contains a very lengthy and well researched user guide to golden section, golden rectangle and golden rectangle proportional systems as manifested naturally in the proportioning of the human body,foliage and planting and as applied artificially in architecture.

Additionally, you may find Corbusiers ‘Modulor’ – an anthropometrically based proportioning system for architects based upon golden section proportions, to be of interest.

Finally, if you are into this kind of thing yo ushould read Colin Rowes ‘Mathematics of the Ideal Vila’ in which he analyses and compares Palladian Golden section proportional systems as applied in various palladian Classical Vilas with the Modulor system as manifested in Corbusiers 20th Century Architecture particularly the Villa Garche).

Regards

JK

Nessa Roche in her book ‘The legacy of light – A history of Irish windows’ has a particularly clear and concise section on the application of the Golden Section to a typical facade. It is simple enough for the dimmest of architects to understand and god knows there are a lot of dim architects about.
Good fenestration is a rarity these days.

try this one on for size….
http://www3.telus.net/JNHDA/

http://library.thinkquest.org/C005449/home.html

The Golden Rule http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4583808,00.html

Nexus Network Journal (Architecture and Mathematics On-Line) is a peer-reviewed on-line research resource for studies in architecture and mathematics, funded by the Graham Foundation for Advanced studies in the Fine Arts.

A special issue of NNJ last Winter, the first dedicated to a particular subject, was devoted to the Golden Section: http://www.nexusjournal.com/index_v4n1.html

An informative, if dry, historical overview is provided in NNJ: Marcus Frings, “The Golden Section in Architectural Theory”, Nexus Network Journal, vol. 4, no. 1 (Winter 2002), http://www.nexusjournal.com/Frings.html

Frings, an art historian at TU Darmstadt, shows that it was not before the middle of the 19th century that the Golden Section, as distinct from other proportional systems, entered architectural theory. One of the earliest of those on the trail of the Golden Section was one Adolf Zeising (1810-1876) – a former secondary school professor, like lila, who began this thread! He it was who intoduced the Golden Section into the literature on art, after the term ‘Goldener Schnitt’ (golden cut or golden cross-section) had first appeared in German lesson books on geometry and mathematics in the 1830s. Fring is also interesting on the influential use (or misuse!) by Neufert and Le Corbusier of the Golden Section.

Sorry Couldn’t Resist!

Misconceptions about the Golden Ratio – an article by George Markowsky, a mathematician at the University of Maine – includes:
Misconception: the name ‘Golden Ratio’ was used in antiquity
Misconception: the Great Pyramid was designed to conform to the Golden Ratio
Misconception: the Greeks used the Golden Ratio in the Parthenon

http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/maa/markowsky.pdf

……to MK there’s a definite link between human proportion and the Golden section….check out Corbusiers modular bulding scales

trace – I didn’t have time to go through that but isn’t it true that anything set out using circles will inevitably have something to do with a golden section?

lila
exact , interesting,…….find here http://www.nexusjournal.com
this is a site for architect and mathematics all about golden issue youcan find there if you want even more info.. read “sense of unity” by
Nader ardalan and if you wanne more….drop me a line i have many source

some golden ratio
a,radical2(1.4)a
a,radical3 a
1,2,3,5,8,13,……………
the way all of the plant grows is same called golden spiral

Prove it

shadow
i do not have time to prove it inorder to be proved go ahead for
1-nature
2-read “sense of unity”
3-look at islamic art
and finaly rack your brain

“the way all of the plant grows is same called golden spiral”

It is this I suggested be proved. Not the whole thing. I have read a number of explanations on the growth of plants and the logic or stuructures that may exist. Not all plant growth is the same and even then growth is just that, growth, continuous development. There appears certainly a family of forms or shapes that have some correspondance but the relationships have not been fully formulated. Recent work on self similarity in systems may provide some suitable ground to begin to talk about mimetic structures.

in short ,the way plant grows is like ^the lower part is wider with bigger leavs slowly when you come up you see the circle became smaler and the distance between leavs became shorter and another point is the leaves do not grow over each other until ……..
so complicated i try to send the picture it take few days

i believe the golden section is so appreciable and satisfying as a proportion because it it the proportion of our vertical and horizontal limits of our vision.

it looks like a nice frame because it is the ultimate frame. our view of the world

hmm two eyes two circles / squares with an overlap – interesting.

http://www.nexusjournal.com/BouMaz.html “The Use of the Golden Section in the Great Mosque of Kairouan [in Tunisia ]” by Algerian architects, Kenza Boussora and Said Mazouz. The first mosque in North Africa, it was founded around the year 670 AD and much altered subsequently. The authors claim: “The geometric technique of construction of the golden section seems to have determined the major decisions of the spatial organisation. The golden section appears repeatedly in some part of the building measurements. It is found in the overall proportion of the plan and in the dimensioning of the prayer space, the court and the minaret.” (Contains diagrammatic illustrations with overlays.)