Given the fact that my book is a rewritten and edited French version of the 10 books of Vitruvius, it comes at ease that I started my Alice research by typing “architecture” into the “Topic of conversation” bar the word “Vitruvius”, as well as the phrase “10 books of architecture by Vitruvius” into the search engine. To be honest, I thought the research would be pretty easy because of the well-known name and book. Later on, I realized that researching like this, is the equivalent to just going into a normal library and asking if they have any books. A huge number of results came up. Many different editions of the original, or lots of quotes from books where Vitruvius was just mentioned once. There were also some books whose only connection with Vitruvius, was the theme of architecture.
After scrolling down a bit, I saw the title “Elements of Architecture” by Koolhaas. I clicked on the xenotheka link and my laptop had to load for five minutes. Over 2333 pages, the book discusses in dept, the different elements of architecture. It’s not about the classical elements and themes as they are found in Vitruvius, but more about modern elements. It seems that this book applies the same Idea Vitruvius had, of breaking down the architecture in it’s basics in order to give guidelines one can follow, but does that with the architecture in the early 21st century. So this book can be seen, as not only a translation of language (like my book with Vitruvius) but also a translation over time of the Vitruvius original.
By changing my gameplan and typing Vitruvius into the “Topic of conversation” Bar and drawings into the “search” bar I came across the book “Daniele Barbaro’s Vitruvius of 1567, translated and annotated by Kim Williams”. The connection from the title alone was striking. Similar to my book, it says that it’s a translation of an earlier Vitruvius edition, with some added comments. The only difference, that one is translated into French, and the other one into English. The structures of the 2 books are also pretty similar, understandable given that both try to translate and comment the “same” original. But one difference being, that the french translation relies on more illustrations and less text.