Appropriate design
details – relation – decoration
The Leipziger Architektur-, Kunst- und Seulen-Buch is a book about the five pillars as the title says. However, it is more than just that. The subtitle claims that this book also teaches you about altars, alcoves, portals, windows and what is necessary to decorate churches and such buildings, especially cupboards, beds, tables and chairs.
The book starts out with the usual studies of each pillar type and showcases what the correct proportions are with the help of units and how these relate to one another. Surprisingly this part of the book is kept rather short and it quickly moves on to the decorations and details of furniture and such.
I think it’s interesting how the pillars are broken down to a tee and how compared to that the second part of the book is drawn exact but without measurements or units. The furniture or decorations are not broken down in units but instead they are drawn in detail and in relation to everything surrounded by it. The importance doesn’t lie in the measurements but in the aesthetics of the furniture in relation to the type of building (church, and other splendid buildings as mentioned in the subtitle). The author tries to identify what is considered appropriate for a church and what is not. The book tries to standardize the compositions and placements in and of furniture, as well as basic shapes, patterns and such that are seen in decorations on furniture by giving drawings as an example
Different types of doors, patterns and settings in a room are shown. Sometimes the door is broken up into segments and each segment of that door is designed differently with a different pattern. That way many different variations can be shown without having to draw a whole door again and again. Other times to support the text, two drawings that look the same apart from tiny details are placed next to each other to emphasize the difference and show how tiny changes can bring about a different feel to it.
The text arguments and explains what frame of choice and which pattern should be used in a church or in another room, what to use when and so on. I think nowadays this would be considered as interior designing and it would not necessarily be an architects job to consider what type of bed is appropriate in a certain setting.