Architect's designs must refer to the unquestionable perfection of the body's symmetry and proportions. If a building is to create a sense of eurythmia, it is essential that it mirrors these natural laws of harmony and beauty
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that architectural designs should reflect the natural beauty and symmetry found in the human body.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio highlights the intrinsic connection between architecture and the principles of natural harmony. He asserts that for a building to embody beauty and a sense of balanced proportion, its design must echo the symmetrical qualities of the human body, thereby achieving a sense of eurythmia, or harmonious flow. This perspective underscores the importance of proportion and beauty in both natural and constructed forms.
In practice
In a presentation about architectural principles, one could cite this quote to emphasize the importance of design in connecting with human aesthetics.
Architects should be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens
Now architecture consists of order, which in Greek is called taxis ... Order is the balanced adjustment of the details of the work separately, and, as to the whole, the arrangement of the proportion with a view to a symmetrical result.
Beauty is produced by the pleasing appearance and good taste of the whole, and by the dimensions of all the parts being duly proportioned to each other.
I am moreover inclined to be concise when I reflect on the constant occupation of the citizens in public and private affairs, so that in their few leisure moments they may read and understand as much as possible.
I, therefore, O Caesar, do not publish this work, merely prefixing my name to a treatise which of right belongs to others, nor think of acquiring reputation by finding fault with the works of any one.
But I, Caesar, have not sought to amass wealth by the practice of my art, having been rather contented with a small fortune and reputation, than desirous of abundance accompanied by a want of reputation.
I want work that, possessing as thin a membrane as possible between life and art, foregrounds the question of how the writer solves being alive.
So I write melodies - thirty, forty, fifty - then I cast them off until I have just two or three. If only one is needed, I go see the director and ask him to decide.
Movies, they take years of my life, so I'm fortunate that I get to work in a lot of different mediums.
Fiction is a branch of neurology: the scenarios of nerve and blood vessels are the written mythologies of memory and desire.
I really wanted to be a model when I was little. I loved photography, and I loved being on camera. But I was short and chubby, so I couldn't. Anyway, being an artist is way more interesting than just being a model because it's about you and what you want to be. You're not being treated like a clothes hanger.
My work is not about "form follows function," but "form follows beauty" or, even better, "form follows feminine."
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