Information
presentation
dimension
structure
The book „Leipziger Architectur-, Kunst-, und Seulen Buch“ is a book about the correct construction of the five orders of a pillar, the construction of altars, alcolves, portals, doors and windows, Senckeisen dedicated his work to the interior as well and gives dimensions for things such as a chair, a bed or a cupboard.
The book contains of a intro page followed by a title page. Senckeisen then wrote a forword and then starts with the content dedicated to architecture. The structured the book with text and plates, where he first put the description and explanations in for of text followed by the plates with drawings for clarification.
The pages with all the description writing have the same layout. On the top in the centre one can see the page number in brackets surrounded by two flower like ornaments. Then a line separating the heading from the writing. The text is written in justification, only the first word is set to the right to mark the beginning of a paragraph. In the right corner of the page there always is one lonely word. This is the first word of the following written page. There is a very clear separation between the text and the belonging drawing. This way his text and this drawings are nicely presented to the reader’s eye.
Senckeisen has a very clear idea of all the dimensions of his objects he covers. He clarifies his drawing by labelling everything with numbers and letters. The reader then can look up the single letters on the following pages. The numbers are mostly different dimensions of the object so one straight away becomes an idea of the scale. Very seldom he labels drawing directly with hole words.
Interesting is also that the hole book in written in the old german language. It is very difficult for modern readers to understand the content in detail and also to decipher the letters which are different to our modern ones. But even though one stays in the dark from the detail it is possible to comprehend the total picture and the overall content. With the knowledge we already have, the similarity within the letters and the analysis of the drawings one can already read a lot. Helpful here is the clear structure and detailed drawing of Senckeisen.