Task IV: Concept
Repetition
I chose this “concept” for the reason that while I was reading through the first pages of the booked, they seemed all very similar to each other. I was inquisitive what kind of pattern of repetition this book follows and how it affects us as a reader.
The Author hardly ever uses whole sentences to describe what the reader can see, except for the beginning. Which makes it hard to figure out what I should memorize from these drawings, except for that they are beautifully made. It would be a lot more interesting to have a description of the building. To know what makes this building or illustration so unique or worthwhile to spent hours on drawing it. Especially because many of the buildings themself look very similar to each other.
The “Layout pattern” throughout the whole book is pretty much the same. One page is left out, while the next one is full with a drawing of a floorplan or front view. Then leaves out one again, draws one, and so on and so on. I guess the book was “layouted” like that because it made the drawings more important and, in this time, printing was harder than today, and doing it like that made it a lot easier.
Although all the pages look very similar because of the repetition, it gives the book a wholeness in itself. What I mean by that is, that you begin to relate each drawing to the bigger picture of the book. Each drawing is a little piece of the puzzle. Together they make this book so exceptional.
The repetition gives us a very good insight into how architecture looked like these days. Many examples are given which you can relate to each other precisely. This leaves us room to think and speak of these building types. To understand motives, ideas, theories and philosophies of a building, comparison to references is very important.
The concept of repetition is also applicable for the “content” of the illustration. The author always started off with a front and/ or side view of the building and afterwards showed most likely a floor plan of the same building. This pattern follows the whole book. It makes it very easy to understand the idea of the building, how it is built or how it must have been living in there.
Key words:
- Empty page – full (drawn) page
- Front view – Ground floor
- Comparison of buildings
The build-up of the pages: