Synopses & Reviews
The relationship between the architectural representation and its intended product--a building--has undergone a profound transformation over the centuries. Before the age of modern technology, the systematically predictive role of architectural drawing so taken for granted today was less dominant in the evolution from architectural idea to built work. The age of computer-aided design has brought with it a stricter standard of fidelity. However, contemporary architecture need not simply accept the inevitability of a technological imperative. This book demonstrates that representation is never a neutral tool or mere picture of a future building. Writing from inside the discipline of architecture, rather than from the more common extrapolations from the history of painting and philosophy, Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier focus on the implications of the tool of perspective (and the hegemony of vision) for architectural representation. Their primary thesis is that tools of representation have a direct influence on the conceptual development of projects and generation of forms, and that there are alternatives to the reductive working methods of most contemporary practice.The book examines textual evidence across a broad historical period, concentrating on the relationship between drawing and architectural space in the period from the seventh to the twentieth century. To understand and evaluate the place of vision in the Western architectural tradition, the book includes a general introduction to optics in antiquity and the Middle Ages and addresses the question of the evolution of linear perspective. This is not, however, a general history of perspective. The book discusses such issues as optical correction and the nature of architectural drawing in selected treatises, revealing the complexity and potential contradiction inherent in any linear history of representation. The authors' ultimate aim is to probe the possibilities of the constructed world--that is, architecture--as a poetic translation, rather than prosaic transcription, of its representations.
Review
This is a book of extraordinary historical breadth that astutely explores cultural continuity and transformation within architectural representation. The MIT Press
Review
"The extreme depth of this impressive and scholarly work adds a thirteenthmonth to the existent twelve of phenomenon in architecturalrepresentation." Steven Holl , Architect The MIT Press
Review
Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier's book, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, can be thought of and seen as oceanic in its fluidity, and its solid depth. The authors' thinking leads us into the dark opacity of light and through the opal luminosity of the mind's eye, producing an architectural joy! The book is built by the block of time…in time. The work extends the vanishing point to the otherside, that is, to the mystery of pure creation. Parachute
Review
Alberto Pérez-Gómez's and Louise Pelletier's searching explorations of different practices of architectural representation and their implications let us understand both need and possibilities for an architecture that would once again restore a depth to buildings unknown to cyberspace and help human beings to return to themselves. No one who cares about the genesis of the world we live in will want to miss this always thought-provoking, immensely learned historical study; no one who cares about the future of architecture can afford to do so. John Hejduk, Architect
Review
Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge impressively surveys the development of architectural representation from Renaissance perspective to the virtual reality of today's computerized architectural practice. The book reveals that architectural representation is not a mere neutral application of a technique; it is deeply fused with our understanding of the world as well as architecture and its essence and a man-made cosmos. Karsten Harries, Department of Philosophy, Yale University
Review
This impressive and scholarly work adds a thirteenth month to the extant twelve of phenomena in architectural representation. Juhani Pallasmaa, Architect, Professor of Architecture, Helsinki
Synopsis
Writing from inside the discipline of architecture, rather than from the more common extrapolations from the history of painting and philosophy, Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier focus on the implications of the tool of perspective (and the hegemony of vision) for architectural representation. Their primary thesis is that tools of representation have a direct influence on the conceptual development of projects and generation of forms, and that there are alternatives to the reductive working methods of most contemporary practice.
The book examines textual evidence across a broad historical period, concentrating on the relationship between drawing and architectural space in the period from the seventh century to the twentieth century. The book discusses such issues as optical correction and the nature of architectural drawing in selected treatises, revealing the complexity and potential contradiction inherent in any linear history of representation. The authors' ultimate aim is to probe the possibilities of the constructed world--that is, architecture--as a poetic translation, rather than prosaic transcription, of its representations.
Synopsis
Writing from inside the discipline of architecture, rather than from the more common extrapolations from the history of painting and philosophy, Alberto Perez-Gomez and Louise Pelletier focus on the implications of the tool of perspective (and the hegemony of vision) for architectural representation. Their primary thesis is that tools of representation have a direct influence on the conceptual development of projects and generation of forms, and that there are alternatives to the reductive working methods of most contemporary practice.
About the Author
Alberto Pérez-Gómez is Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History of Architecture at McGill University. He is the author of Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) and (with Louise Pelletier) Architecural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (MIT Press, 1997).